[Grammar] sat watching the TV programs / watched TV programs sitting.

difference between two sentences

1.The old man sat watching the tv programs.

2.The old man watched tv programs sitting.
do the sentences above express the same meaning? are here ''the old man sat watching.....'' and ''the old man watched tv programs sitting'' participles and work adverbially expressing cause? please explain grammatically .

Re: difference between two sentences

Dear Teachers,
Can I ask some questions?
In the first sentence, can I rewrite into the following sentences?
1. The old man sat to watch the TV programs.
2. The old man who was watching the TV program sat.
Thank a lot!

Re: difference between two sentences

anhnha said:

Dear Teachers,
Can I ask some questions?
In the first sentence, can I rewrite into the following sentences?
1. The old man sat to watch the TV programs.
2. The old man who was watching the TV program sat.
Thank a lot!

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1. The purpose of his taking a seat was to watch TV.
2. This tells you which old man sat down.

Re: difference between two sentences

Gillnetter said:

Gil

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Although I do not want to question tv programs' inability to sit, I would like to ask, why the progressive 'sitting' can refer only to 'tv programs' and not to 'old man'.
Thank you in advance

Re: difference between two sentences

tom3m said:

Although I do not want to question tv programs' unability to sit, I would like to ask, why the progressive 'sitting' can refer only to 'tv programs' and not to 'old man'.
Thank you in advance

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Hello, tom3m.:-D

"The old man watched tv programs sitting." is indeed similar in construction to "The old man heard the boy crying." (I think this is what Gillnetter meant.)

"The old man watched TV programs, sitting on the couch." might work. (I'm not sure if it's natural or not, but it looks fine to me.)

"The old man sat watching TV programs." is probably the best.

P.S. I think you meant 'inability'.:-D

Re: difference between two sentences

tzfujimino said:

Hello, tom3m.:-D

"The old man watched tv programs sitting." is indeed similar in construction to "The old man heard the boy crying." (I think this is what Gillnetter meant.)

"The old man watched TV programs, sitting on the couch." might work. (I'm not sure if it's natural or not, but it looks fine to me.)

"The old man sat watching TV programs." is probably the best.

P.S. I think you meant 'inability'.:-D

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Thank you, I just thought that there could be ambiguity and therefore two ways of understanding the sentence.

Despite trying, this replacement did not come to my mind, thanks. :-D

P.S. unability corrected, I thought the word was derived from the adjective unable, thanks for correction ;-)

Re: difference between two sentences

tzfujimino said:

Hello, tom3m.:-D

"The old man watched tv programs sitting." is indeed similar in construction to "The old man heard the boy crying." (I think this is what Gillnetter meant.)

"The old man watched TV programs, sitting on the couch." might work. (I'm not sure if it's natural or not, but it looks fine to me.)

"The old man sat watching TV programs." is probably the best.

P.S. I think you meant 'inability'.:-D

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then can i rewrite the sentence ''the old man sat on the couch watching the tv programs''?

Re: difference between two sentences

tom3m said:

Although I do not want to question tv programs' inability to sit, I would like to ask, why the progressive 'sitting' can refer only to 'tv programs' and not to 'old man'.
Thank you in advance

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Here ''sitting'' do not refer to ''tv programs'', it refers to the old man.The old man watched tv programs sitting if i split the sentence like this ''The old man watched tv programs while he was sitting''.If i question who is sitting? the answer is ''the old man'' so sitting refers to the old man only.

Re: difference between two sentences

Barb_D said:

1. The purpose of his taking a seat was to watch TV.
2. This tells you which old man sat down.

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is the sentence ''The old man sat watching tv programs'' same as 1) ''The old man sat to watch the tv programs'',2) ''The old man watched tv programs sitting'' grammatically?

Re: difference between two sentences

Babai said:

Then can I rewrite the sentence into ''the old man sat on the couch watching the TV programs''?

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Hello, Babai.:-D
I'd say it's grammatically correct.
I've just visited COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) and found 2 citations.
And 6 more here: phrases containing sit on the couch watching

P.S. Correct capitalization is advisable.

:-D

Re: difference between two sentences

They do not carry the same meaning. The first I have already explained. The second suggests that he sat, compared to some other position, like standing. Since we usually watch TV sitting down, it would require an unusual context to make that a natural sentence.

1.The old man sat watching the tv programs.​

2.The old man watched tv programs sitting.​

do the sentences above express the same meaning? are here ''the old man sat watching.....'' and ''the old man watched tv programs sitting'' participles and work adverbially expressing cause? please explain grammatically .​

Babai said:

1.The old man sat watching the tv programs.​

2.The old man watched tv programs sitting.​

do the sentences above express the same meaning? are here ''the old man sat watching.....'' and ''the old man watched tv programs sitting'' participles and work adverbially expressing cause? please explain grammatically .​

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I see you started a new thread, which I have merged into this one.
Clearly you don't find my answers believable.

I'll try one more time.

1 - This is the natural way to say this.
2 - This says that he watched TV from a sitting position, as if most people watched standing up, or as if he did everything else in another position, but TV was the only thing he did sitting down. We know the first "as if" is not true. Unless this old man generally doesn't sit down for any other activity, it doesn't say what you want it to say.

If you don't like this answer, then please reply in this thread instead of starting a new one, and we will hope that someone else will come along with an answer you prefer.