Questions tagged [tough-movement]
In formal syntax, tough movement refers to sentences in which the syntactic subject of the main verb is logically the object of an embedded non-finite verb. Because the object of the lower verb is absent, such sentences are also sometimes called "missing object constructions".
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"No one is easy to talk to"
Do clauses with predicates that take infinitival complements like easy or ready such as the examples in (1) combine naturally with negative subjects? Are the examples in (2) OK?
(1a) John is easy to ...
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Whether it's correct to say he is easy to get angry?
My confusion is that if there are any grammatical rules or limitation on the logical subject of infinitive, adjective-wise maybe?
I know these work:
He is happy to do something
something is easy to ...
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Difference between this two sentences
I was reading an academic paper, and this sentence came up:
This matrix is not easy to be estimated exactly
Why the author has chosen this form, in some sense convoluted because it contains three ...
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It is an important thing to do or to be done? [duplicate]
Which one is correct? Can i use them interchangably and is there a common rule for such constructions? Thanks in advance.
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Is the sentence "Queueing is so thoughtful of you." grammatically correct?
In the following two blog posts ("Illiteracy in Singapore - the Land Transport Authority" and "LTA's illiterate poster") the author accused the poster depicted below of being evidence of illiteracy in ...
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How difficult was that decision to make vs How difficult was it to make that decision? [closed]
How difficult was that decision to make?
How difficult was it to make that decision?
How difficult was that decision to be made?
Are there any differences among the above-mentioned sentences?
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To infinitive used after adjective
This question is relatively simple. I don't understand why we never use passive form of to infinitive after the adjective unless the subject is "it".
For example:
He is difficult to please.
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To explain or to be explained
I have searched lots of websites to understand which one is correct in this sentence:
It is too hard to (be) explain(ed).
Some people say that after some adjectives called tough adjectives you can't ...
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"a question impossible to answer" and "a situation possible to arise" Are they grammatical?
To be possible/impossible can be followed by an infinitive verb only when the subject of the finite verb is the introductory "it". With any other subject the infinitive would be wrong, so ...
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fun to make and fun to eat
“These cookies are fun to make and especially fun to eat.”
(source)
Semantically, these cookies is both to-infinitves’ object; and to-infinitves seems to be the semantic subject of both funs, as is ...
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will be possible to be used
Is it (1) correct, (2) natural/wise to say the following in english: "[X] will be possible to be used here as [Y, ie. some function/role]"?
Are there any alternatives, and if there are, are they a ...
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