词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Gerunds vs. Infinitives, Part 2

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: more of our discussion of gerunds and infinitives² with English teacher Lida Baker³.

RS: A gerund, remember, is a verb ending in -ing but used as a noun. An infinitive¹ is a verb with the preposition "to" as in to go, to swim, to walk.

AA: Huy Doan in Vietnam asks about the verb "regret." He wants to know if the verb that follows it should be a gerund or an infinitive, and what's the difference? We asked Lida.

LIDA BAKER: "If we have a sentence like 'I regret to inform you that you have not been accepted to the university of your choice,' that's a correct sentence. In contrast to that, if we say something like 'I regret buying that car,' that's also a correct sentence. So what's the difference? OK, with this verb, and with a few other verbs, the choice of infinitive or gerund has to do with which event happened first. If I say 'I regret buying that car,' what happened first?"

AA: "You bought the car."

LIDA BAKER: "I bought the car. And later I regretted it. Now let me give you a clearer example of that: 'I stopped smoking' versus⁴ 'I stopped to smoke.'"

RS: "Alright ... "

AA: "Ohhh."

RS: "Right, 'I stopped smoking' means 'I don't smoke anymore' and 'I stopped to smoke' means I stopped ... "

AA: "To go smoke a cigarette out on the street."

RS: "It's very tricky⁵."

LIDA BAKER: "That's very tricky and very, very -- a pitfall⁶ for students. Let's see if we can form some kind of a generalization⁷ from this, OK? Basically some verbs must have a gerund after them. Some verbs must have an infinitive after them. And some verbs can have both.

"Of the verbs that can have both a gerund and an infinitive after them, sometimes there is no difference in meaning. But sometimes there is a big difference in meaning, as we just saw in the example of 'I stopped smoking/I stopped to smoke.' So those are the four classes of uses of infinitives and gerunds in object position, alright?"

AA: "How do you learn them?"

LIDA BAKER: "The learner first of all has to know that there is such a thing as a gerund, there is such a thing as an infinitive, that they can occur in subject position, that they can occur following the verb in a variety of positions. So the learner first of all needs consciousness-raising. You know, what are the options?"

RS: "So should a student, once he has that overview⁸, get out a list of words and start memorizing?"

LIDA BAKER: "No, that is not the best way to learn infinitives and gerunds -- although, interestingly, when I started teaching many, many, many years ago, typically what textbooks would have would be a list of verbs in alphabetical⁹ order. You know, you'd have a list of verbs that are followed by gerunds and a list of verbs that are followed by infinitives. The student would have no choice but just to memorize them.

"Since then, what linguists¹⁰ have learned, or have figured out, is that infinitives and gerunds very often fall into meaning categories. For example, there are a whole bunch of verbs that are generally used with the meaning of communicating something that are all followed by gerunds. I'll give you a couple of examples. To recommend: 'My best friend recommended seeing a doctor.' Or the verb suggest: 'He suggested leaving early in order to avoid the traffic.'

"So, many textbooks nowadays present the verbs which are followed by gerunds versus the verbs that are followed by infinitives in terms of meaning categories, OK? Then there is a category of verbs of choice or intention, that have that meaning, so verbs like choose or decide or refuse. They're followed directly by the infinitive. So: 'He decided¹¹ to go,' 'He expected to receive a letter from his mother.' The point is that infinitives and gerunds can be learned alphabetically¹², like you mentioned, but they can also be learned in categories."

AA: Lida Baker writes textbooks for English learners and teaches at the American Language Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. We have the first part of this topic,  and all of her previous segments, on our Web site, voanews.com/wordmaster.

RS: And our e-mail address is。。。。。With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

 

1 infinitive   

n.不定词；adj.不定词的

参考例句：

• The use of the split infinitive is now generally acceptable.分裂不定式的用法现在已被广泛接受。
• Modal verbs generally take the bare infinitive.情态动词通常用不带to的不定式。

2 infinitives   

n.（动词）不定式( infinitive的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Her litmus test for good breeding is whether you split infinitives. 她测试别人是否具有良好教养的标准是看对方是否在不定式的动词前加修饰副词。 来自互联网
• Nouns, adjectives and infinitives can be used as objective complements. 名词，形容词及不定式可用作补语。 来自互联网

3 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

4 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

5 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

6 pitfall   

n.隐患，易犯的错误；陷阱，圈套

参考例句：

• The wolf was caught in a pitfall.那只狼是利用陷阱捉到的。
• The biggest potential pitfall may not be technical but budgetary.最大的潜在陷阱可能不是技术问题，而是预算。

7 generalization   

n.普遍性，一般性，概括

参考例句：

• This sweeping generalization is the law of conservation of energy.这一透彻的概括就是能量守恒定律。
• The evaluation of conduct involves some amount of generalization.对操行的评价会含有一些泛泛之论。

8 overview   

n.概观，概述

参考例句：

• The opening chapter gives a brief historical overview of transport.第一章是运输史的简要回顾。
• The seminar aims to provide an overview on new media publishing.研讨会旨在综览新兴的媒体出版。

9 alphabetical   

adj.字母（表）的，依字母顺序的

参考例句：

• Please arrange these books in alphabetical order.请把这些书按字母顺序整理一下。
• There is no need to maintain a strict alphabetical sequence.不必保持严格的字顺。

10 linguists   

n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 )；语言学家

参考例句：

• The linguists went to study tribal languages in the field. 语言学家们去实地研究部落语言了。 来自辞典例句
• The linguists' main interest has been to analyze and describe languages. 语言学家的主要兴趣一直在于分析并描述语言。 来自辞典例句

11 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

12 alphabetically   

adv.照字母顺序排列地

参考例句：

• I've arranged the books alphabetically so don't muddle them up. 我已按字母顺序把这些书整理了，千万不要再弄乱。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They are all filed alphabetically under author. 这些都是按照作者姓名的字母顺序归档的。 来自辞典例句