Infinitive, gerund and bare infinitive right after verbs

[borsbali]

Hello!

It is me again. A very important English grammar has come to my mind, which again is not very clear for me when teaching.

Please, write me back which examples are right and which are wrong and why?

- The first thing I will do is find/to find/finding a job for me.
- My aim is find/to find/finding a job for me.
- What I really want is find/to find/finding a job for me.

And last, but not least:
- What we are doing now is help/to help/helping the poor.
- What we have done is help/to help/helping/helped the poor???

I'm looking forward to your reply.
Thank you very much.

Balázs.

[hamlet554]

No guarantee for the correctness of the explanations given below as I am not a native speaker either but that's how I understand it:

Hello!


- The first thing I will do is
......find a job for myself. = general statement, that's what you want to do

......to find a job for myself.= I don't think this is possible, I would never say that myself (no real explanation, more intuition)

......finding a job for myself= stress on the actual act of going out and looking for a job.


- My aim is
......find a job for myself. = I definitely don't think this is possible

......to find a job for myself. = I'd go with this one because you need either infinitive or gerund and I don't think this calls for a gerund --> change the sentence and the infinitive makes the most sense: "It is my aim to find a job."

......finding a job for myself. = I don't think this is possible, either.


- What I really want is find/to find/finding a job for myself.
--> same explanations as first example


- What we are doing now is
......help the poor. = that's what we are doing now after e.g. a long discussion about what we could do to make life better on earth.

......to help the poor. = to help the poor instead of the homeless.

......helping the poor. = stress on the actual act of currently helping the poor


- What we have done is help/to help/helping the poor.
--> same explanations as in the example above

- What we have done is helped the poor. = This is not a correct sentence. You have to change it into:
"What we have done is we helped the poor." --> When sb asks you about what you have done to again e.g. help improve the earth compared to others who have also tried to help in this matter, you tell them that you helped the poor (compared to others who helped the homeless).

[borsbali]

Dear hamlet554!

Thanks a lot for your explaination, but I do not think that in the first bunch, both bare infinitive and gerund is possible. I do not know, but it is my premonition.
Could somebody come up with a more precise answer?
Thank you.

Balázs.

[albertino]

I was taught that when we come to a structure like this:
"...do + is + (to infinitive) + particle", we usually reduce the "to-infinitive" (surely, it is not wrong for you to keep it anyway)
For example,
(i) What I want to do now is (to) watch TV and have snacks.
(ii) All she did was (to) give me a hug.

So the answers to your questions are: ALL CORRECT except one
The first thing I will do is find/to find/(A complement)finding a job for me.
- My aim is find/to find/(A complement)finding a job for me.
- What I really want is find/to find/(A complement)finding a job for me.
- What we are doing now is help/to help/(A complement)helping the poor.
- What we have done is help/to help/(A complement)helping/(helped X) the poor???


Hope that helps, Balázs. : ) (Forgot to tell you I'm not a teacher)

[borsbali]

Thanks, albertino!!! Any teacher confirming that stated above?

Thanks in advance.

[albertino]

Sorry, I have made a mistake in here(highlighted in red)
So the answers to your questions are: ALL CORRECT except two
The first thing I will do is find/to find/(A complement)finding a job for me.
- My aim is find(x)/to find/(A complement)finding a job for me.
- What I really want is find/to find/(A complement)finding a job for me.
- What we are doing now is help/to help/(A complement)helping the poor.
- What we have done is help/to help/(A complement)helping/(helped X) the poor???

My apologies, Balázs. : (

[borsbali]

Not at all. Thanks a lot.