has been assisting with recent efforts to rescue elegant tern chicks

[GoldfishLord]

1. The Aquarium of the Pacific has been assisting with recent efforts to rescue elegant tern chicks in the Long Beach Harbor.

2. A major problem is that even a limited invasion would require massive forces, including two full South Korean corps. And there is reason to question whether South Korea could sustain the effort. "In our wargames, it was not unusual for the equivalent of a corps to be destroyed in one week's fighting to achieve a single penetration, translating to tens of thousands of casualties," RAND noted.
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1. I'd like to know the reason why, even though "to" can be substituted with "in order to", "to" can't.

 

[probus]

It's not difficult. Suppose in sentence 1 you replaced "to" with "in order to". What would the sentence then mean? Nothing, to me. It would have become nonsensical.

The efforts are made in order to help do something. Examples:

We are gateful for your efforts to help us.

John didn't immediately grasp what had been said, so he made an effort to parse the words carefully.

 

[Phaedrus]

From a syntactic standpoint, the infinitival clause "to rescue elegant tern chicks in the Long Beach Harbor" is the complement of the noun "efforts."

Consider that the whole noun phrase can be fronted:

Recent efforts to rescue elegant tern chicks in the Long Beach Harbor, the Aquarium of the Pacific has been assisting with.

or isolated in a pseudo-cleft construction:

What the Aquarium of the Pacific has been assisting with is recent efforts to rescue elegant tern chicks in the Long Beach Harbor.

or in a standard it-cleft:

It is recent efforts to rescue tern chicks in the Long Beach Harbor that the Aquarium of the Pacific has been assisting with.

 

[jutfrank]

From a meaning point of view, the answer is simply that unlike the blue to, the red to does not express purpose. Look at the following patterns:

try to do something
make an effort to do something

The tos in those patterns help form the infinitive verbs that must follow try and make an effort to complete their meanings.

 

[5jj]

Consider that the whole noun phrase can be fronted:

Recent efforts to rescue elegant tern chicks in the Long Beach Harbor, the Aquarium of the Pacific has been assisting with.

That sounds extremely unnatural to me.

 

[Phaedrus]

That sounds extremely unnatural to me.

Topicalization is a constituency test. The point is that what sounds unnatural to you here is perfectly grammatical. And it doesn't work in the other case at all. Contrast:

Recent efforts to rescue elegant tern chicks in the Long Beach Harbor, the Aquarium of the Pacific has been assisting with.
*One week’s fighting to achieve a single penetration, the equivalent of a corps was destroyed in.

But if you persist in bullying that particular constituency test, please don't forget about the other two I used in post #3. Those sentences are extremely natural.

 

[5jj]

what sounds extremely unnatural to you here is perfectly grammatical.

That, I would say, is a matter of opinion.

O-S-V order is possible in some varieties of English, possibly influenced by Yiddish - Bagels(,) I love. However to the best of my limited knowledge, this is restricted in its acceptability and in the length of utterance possible. Even with your original sentence shortened to Efforts to rescue tern chicks, the aquarium has been assisting with, it seems to be so unnatural as to be considered ungrammatical.

 

[Phaedrus]

Even with your original sentence shortened to Efforts to rescue tern chicks, the aquarium has been assisting with, it seems to be so unnatural as to be considered ungrammatical.

I strongly disagree. The best of your limited knowledge here seems limited to me at best.

I predict that your next move will be either to boot the thread to Linguistics or to silence me by closing the thread. I hope you're enjoying your moderator powers, Piscean.

 

[5jj]

The best of your limited knowledge here seems limited to me at best.

The enlighten me, please. I have offered no evidence so far except my personal opinion for what sounds natural. It seems to me that you haven't, either. "Topicalization is a constituency test" says nothing about whether the sentence under discussion is grammatical.

I predict that your next move will be either to boot the thread to Linguistics

Right. That is a more appropriate forum for this type of discussion.

or to silence me by closing the thread.

We mods close threads only when they have clearly reached the natural end of their lives, or some member becomes offensive. We haven't reached that stage - yet.

I hope you're enjoy your moderator powers, Piscean.

Though it's becoming dangerously close.

 

[emsr2d2]

@GoldfishLord - has the question been answered to your satisfaction?

 

[GoldfishLord]

@GoldfishLord - has the question been answered to your satisfaction?

I need more time to order my thoughts.

 

[Phaedrus]

Though it's becoming dangerously close.

Thanks for ridiculing my typo. I have edited it. A kinder moderator might simply have edited it himself. That's what I'd do in a case like this at the grammar forum I moderate.

 

[Phaedrus]

O-S-V order is possible in some varieties of English, possibly influenced by Yiddish - Bagels(,) I love. However to the best of my limited knowledge, this is restricted in its acceptability and in the length of utterance possible. Even with your original sentence shortened to Efforts to rescue tern chicks, the aquarium has been assisting with, it seems to be so unnatural as to be considered ungrammatical.

Here is an example with a fronted/topicalized direct object consisting of even more words—an example that has been read as fine English for half a millennium:

"But the bullock, and his hide, his flesh, and his dung, he burnt with fire without the camp; as the Lord commanded Moses" (Leviticus 8:17, KJV).

The sentence subject is "he." The direct object of "burnt" is the fronted/topicalized compound noun phrase "the bullock, and his hide, his flesh, and his dung."

 

[5jj]

Have you an example or two from something written more recently than 1611? The language of a religious work written over 400 years ago, beautiful though it may be, is hardly evidence of its naturalness or grammaticality today.

I know that some modern versions of the Bible retain this word order in that verse, but they also retain many other dated forms. How about some original words produced in the last fifty years?

 

[5jj]

I have been searching, and I found these examples of fronting (here):

Sometimes, in order to emphasise a particular part of the clause, we can change the typical order. An untypical word order in a declarative clause, for example, is object – subject – verb (OSV).

For example, speaker B puts the object (the kitchen) first, to link with A’s question:

A: Have you decided what colour to paint the kitchen yet?
B:The kitchen we’ve already painted. We decided on white for now. We still can’t decide on the colour for the living room.

and

Object fronting​

That car we bought at least five years ago. The other one we only bought last year.

(By fronting the objects (that car and the other one) we focus on them and the contrast between them.).

I have been unable to find OSV constructions of any great length, though I did come up with my own:

OSV constructions of any great length I have been unable to find.


Though it somewhat weakens my earlier arguments, I have to admit that I think that is grammatical.

 

[jutfrank]

I don't know why we're talking about fronting, anyway. The OP question relates to the meaning/use of to.

 

[5jj]

... which you dealt with in post #4!

I am afraid I allowed myself to sidetrack the thread by reacting to something Phaedrus wrote.

Sorry, GoldfishLord.

 

[GoldfishLord]

... which you dealt with in post #4!

I am afraid I allowed myself to sidetrack the thread by reacting to something Phaedrus wrote.

Sorry, GoldfishLord.

It is good for me to read posts by native English speakers.

 

[Phaedrus]

I don't know why we're talking about fronting, anyway. The OP question relates to the meaning/use of to.

Please allow me to explain again, then. I used fronting/topicalization, ALONG WITH TWO TYPES OF PERFECTLY NATURAL CLEFT SENTENCES, to demonstrate that the "recent efforts to rescue elegant tern chicks in the Long Beach Harbor" is a noun phrase, in which the infinitival clause ("to rescue elegant tern chicks in the Long Beach Harbor") functions as a complement of the plural noun head ("efforts"), NOT as an adverbial, which it would have to be if it were capable of being introduced by "in order."

 

[jutfrank]

I used fronting/topicalization ... to demonstrate that the "recent efforts to rescue elegant tern chicks in the Long Beach Harbor" is a noun phrase, in which the infinitival clause ("to rescue elegant tern chicks in the Long Beach Harbor") functions as a complement of the plural noun head ("efforts"), NOT as an adverbial, which it would have to be if it were capable of being introduced by "in order."

Okay, I see. I didn't get that before, sorry.