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 .
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!
1. The purpose of his taking a seat was to watch TV.Originally Posted by anhnha
2. This tells you which old man sat down.
I'm not a teacher, but I write for a living. Please don't ask me about 2nd conditionals, but I'm a safe bet for what reads well in (American) English.
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
Last edited by tom3m; 28-Jul-2012 at 09:42. Reason: UNABILITY changed to inability
Hello, tom3m.
"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'.
Hello, tom3m.
"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'.Thank you, I just thought that there could be ambiguity and therefore two ways of understanding the sentence.
"The old man sat watching TV programs." is probably the best. -Despite trying, this replacement did not come to my mind, thanks.
P.S. unability corrected, I thought the word was derived from the adjective unable, thanks for correction
then can i rewrite the sentence ''the old man sat on the couch watching the tv programs''?Hello, tom3m.
"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'.
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.
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?
Hello, Babai.
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.
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