Is "suitable to V" used naturally in the following? Sentence (a) is from CNN. If (a) is okay but (b) is not, why the difference? a. Ever since, Curiosity has been investigating the geologic record to understand when Mars might have been most suitable to host life. b. John is most suitable to perform the … Read more
Does the usage of the infinitive to show serve the purpose the task below? Task: write a sentence using the infinitive "to show" as an adverb modifying an adjective. I tried to use "to show" as an adverb in order to modify the adjective "beautiful" and "wonderful" in the sentences below: Adam likes his job … Read more
Marian had plenty of work to finish In the correction form, it says that the function of to finish is adverbial. But why it is not an adjective? Which work? The work to finish. So it is an adjective!! Answer You’re right in your analysis, but not exactly correct in the terminology. The phrase is … Read more
I’m studying infinitives being a verbal that can function as noun, adjective, or adverb. I’m somewhat confused that the following sentences are correct. If so, what is difference between them? If I had some tasks, I would prefer to go with second one. I have some tasks to do. I have some tasks to be … Read more
Is the infinitive phrase ‘to adjust to the NBA’ modifying the adjective ‘difficult’ or it is in apposition with the subject ‘It’? It was not difficult for LeBron to adjust to the NBA. Answer Analyzing the grammar, “difficult” is a so-called “predicate adjective” modifying “it”. But “it” does refer to the phrase,”for LeBron to adjust … Read more
To help others is important. In this sentence, ‘To help’ is the infinitive (being used as noun subject) and ‘is’ is the verb. What is the object ? ‘Others’ ? And is ‘To help others’ an infinitive phrase ? Since ‘others’ is explaining ‘To help who ?’. I really need to eat something. In this … Read more
In the sentence below, the main clause (subject: patients) is followed by an infinitival that I understand to be a purpose infinitive. However, the logical subject of the infinitival seems to be the doctor. Is this conflict justified or what? I consulted A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar, but found nothing to indicate its correctness. … Read more
“It is obligatory for companies to provide details of their industrial processes.” The sentence above has phrase “obligatory for companies” and phrase “to provide details of their industrial processes”. What kind of function does second phrase bear? It is not clear because after verb “be” sentence already has direct object, and after it I see … Read more
I want to know that: does the perfect tense function it proper usage when it preceded by “to” infinitive. I was taught that we couldn’t put “ago” with present perfect. So, I came across a sentence such as the following: These lions seem to have existed 70 years ago Isn’t the same as?: These lions … Read more
While I was reading Wikipedia article(Felony murder rule),I came across a phrase ‘to qualify as an underlying offense for a felony murder‘.I tried to get the essence of the phrase from the context of article, where I consider this phrase as sort of “for an underlying offence to be qualified as felony of murder”,but I’m … Read more
