Functional Grammar of English Group

V-ing or to V? (Assignment 1)

Eng99B Selphie 盧惠珊, Vivian 戴維萱, Lisa 羅翊寧, May 林秀青, Rico 趙子瑩, Elle 溫斐瑱

In junior high school textbooks or other materials students use to study, the editors categorize verbs into three kinds, one after which could be added only the infinitives (e.g. avoid), another gerunds (e.g. enjoy), the other does fine for both infinitives and gerunds (e.g. like). In the third kind, that is, verbs which can be followed by both infinitives and gerunds, the editors subcategorize the members in this group into (a.) verbs whose meanings don’t differ preceding either to V or V-ing. (b.) verbs whose meanings differ according to what is put after them.

A typical member in (a), “like,” is taught to students making no difference followed by to V or V-ing. Textbook editors often have the substitution test for students to substitute “to V” for “V-ing” or “V-ing” for “to V.” However, there ARE indeed differences between the choice of to V and V-ing the members of (a.) To make the differences clear, we would like to examine the real usages by native speakers, to see whether different contexts or purposes of the speech decide the different choices of a gerund or an infinitive.

Examples of like+to V (infinitive)

1. I like to find anything I can possibly find that makes noise
2. I like to sky up there
3. I think I'd like to get involved like that.
4. I'd like to have hair like that.
5. I would like to direct projects like that.
6. …there are a few kids on this team that would like to substitute something like' Sophisticated Blitz Tactics'…

In the above examples, putting “to V” after like seems to imply the feeling of “future,” because when the speakers pronounce these sentences, they aren’t currently doing the things mentioned, and they are expressing the feeling that they are going to fulfill the actions. Also, putting “to V” after like emphasizes the “movement” or the “action” of the infinitive verb. That is, it’s something they want to “do.”

7. …the Democrats like to think of most of the country are fly-over country…
8. They like to be approached.
9. I like the rewards; I like to have something to do; I like to get out of the house.
10. I like to dance slow and fast.
11. …,who also like to visit places like Machu Picchu

In the above examples, the feeling of “futureness” no longer exists. However, the intention to emphasize the movement or the action still occurs, since the sentence would be different if we change, for example, (7) into “…the Democrats like thinking of most of the country are fly-over country…” If “to think” is changed into “thinking,” the idea of the sentence becomes more concrete (the characteristic of nouns.) Compare “…the Democrats like thinking of most of the country are fly-over country…” and “…the Democrats like the idea,” we‘ll find that using a gerund in the sentence makes the sentence closer to the concrete “idea.” The emphasis of the articulation isn’t on the progressive movement of “think.”

Examples of like+ V-ing (gerund)

1. I actually like cooking better.
2. I like eating, I like fucking, I like killing.
3. They like hanging out with me
4. …they like working with teenagers because teenagers are fun.
5. I don't like being woken up like this
6. if you like pizza and you like dogs and you like skiing, try them all.
7. You like telling people what to do?
8. …a guy like that wouldn't like playing in the shadows.
9. I like coaching. I like being part of a very unpredictable and interesting intellectual and physical challenge.
10. It's just that words fly out of his mouth sometimes like stinging wasps.

In all of the above examples, we see that the gerunds indicate the concrete and static state of an idea. That is, if the idea expressed through a gerund happens to have a nominal form, speakers probably could also use the nominal form to achieve the same purpose of the articulation. If we change (2) with similar concepts expressed through nouns “I like food(eating), I like sex(fucking), I like murder(killing,)” then the idea could still be expressed very effectively. The concept aroused in people’s minds tends to be the same, usually a static and concrete idea.

Though the verbs “remember” and “forget” also belong to the third kind of verbs which can be added both infinitives and gerunds, they belong to the subcategory of (b.), verbs whose meanings differ according to what is put after them, to V or V-ing. In the subcategory of (b.), textbook editors generalize a set of grammar rules for students to remember, helping them to distinguish different occasions to use “to V” and “V-ing.” Yet, according to our observation, whether to add to V or V-ing after “remember” and “forget” is actually decided by the same factor (the context, whose emphasis is on the static event or the progressive movement, future or non-future) as after “like.” Here we will illustrate our idea by looking at some “remember + to V” and “remember +V-ing” examples.

Examples of remember +to V (infinitive)

1. I will remember to address your father by his full title in future.
2. You must always remember to shut every gate.
3. I must remember to be cautiously optimistic about that, there's nothing definite.

In most textbooks, the editors state that putting “to V” after “remember” means that someone intends or needs to do something some time in the future. We can tell from the above examples that this kind of usage contains a feeling of “futureness”. As in (1), the speaker will address….some time in the future. In (2) and (3), both the sentences indicate that people have to do certain things next time when encountering the same situation, which again gives the same feeling of “futureness” as in “like+ to V”

Examples of remember + V-ing (gerund)

1. I don't remember doing that.
2. I remember seeing him a couple of times.
3. …and I remember telling this girl who I was chatting up that I played bass.

In all of the above examples, similar to the replacement we did in “like +V-ing”, we could change the gerund and the object into a pronoun and still be effective in communicating our ideas. In (2), if we use “it” to replace “seeing him a couple of times”, the sentence will become “I remember it,” which is often what is said when speakers need to refer to the same event(V-ing) the second time. As a result, we could infer that “V-ing” has a nominative characteristic, and the emphasis of the sentences isn’t on the action but on the static event.

To make clearer our idea that whether to add to V or V-ing after the members of (b) is decided by the same factor (the context, whose emphasis is on the static event or the progressive movement, future or non-future) as after “like,” which is the member of (a.), we would like to look at the verb “stop,” another typical member of (b.) to see whether “V-ing” and “to V” functions the same after stop with our observation.

Examples of stop +to V (infinitive)

1. She did not stop to think, and when the Rabbit ran down a large rabbit-hole, Alice followed it immediately.
2. Some stop to talk to the hunger strikers.
3. At the corner we stop to say hello to Bobby's mother, a weathered woman with a big head, wearing a tartan apron.

We can see from the examples above, “stop + to V” indicates that the speaker doesn’t do what s/he is doing currently any more but begins to do something else(the V). In (3), it is clear that the speakers don’t walk anymore but start to talk to someone else. The usage of “to V” triggers the meaning of a future action or movement.

Examples of stop + V-ing (gerund)

1. Stop thinking --; thinking only makes you scared.
2. She wished he would stop talking for now he was saying…
3. We should stop drinking German wine and beer and stop eating their sausages.

In these sentences above, we can tell that speakers cease something, usually a static state of movements and actions. In (2), the speaker wished her friend would not keep on what he was saying at that time. If, again, we use “it” to replace “talking”, the sentence will become “She wished he would stop it…” The speaker is very likely to articulate such a sentence, if she wants to refer to the same event the second time, just as in the case of “remember+V-ing.”

To conclude, though many textbook editors make no difference between “like +to V” and “like + V-ing”, we can tell from the corpus we have talked about the different selection of patterns actually brings about different meanings or implications. On the other hand, albeit editors tend to emphasize the difference between adding infinitives and gerunds after verbs in the subcategory (b) (e.g. remember and stop), the differences of adding V-ing and to V actually correspond to that after “like,” a member of the subcategory (a). The verbs belonging to different subcategories, (a) and (b), in fact have the same implication and arouse the same ideas or concepts when added infinitives and gerunds respectively.

In junior high schools, the usages of “like” are taught before verbs in the (b) subcategory, such as “remember” and “stop” , but the slight differences of adding V-ing or to V after “like” are usually ignored. But when students start to acquire verbs belonging to the (b) subcategory in the third group, such as remember, forget, and stop, they couldn’t understand the differences suggested by textbook editors and teachers. Therefore, we propose that the differences and similarities of adding V-ing or to V after such verbs as “like,” “forget,” “stop,” etc., both in subcategory (a) and (b), shouldn’t be ignored but should be addressed. Textbook editors and teachers should also help students understand them with the different usages shown to them accompanied by contexts.

Dear all,

你們的觀察方向正確。

以後我們在verbal complement單元中會談到：V-ing基本上較為noun-like, 而to +V 則保有較多的verbal features. 而你們提出的語料觀察，基本上正呼應了這個方向。