Why ...ing form of verb?

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Madeline2000

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Can anybody tell me why we use the ...ing form of verb here?

"The teachers are keen on the students taking part in the activities". Is it down to the preposition?

Thank you
 

emsr2d2

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Whenever we use "keen on" and follow it with a verb, the verb takes the -ing form.

I'm keen on shopping.
He's keen on swimming.
They're keen on moving house as soon as possible.

If you change it to "keen to", it's followed by the bare infinitive.

I'm keen to shop.
He's keen to swim.
They're keen to move house as soon as possible.
 

Madeline2000

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Yes I know that following a preposition we use the ..ing form, but...between "keen on" and "taking part" we have " the students", so is this still the case?
 

emsr2d2

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The same rule applies.

I'm keen on you buying me presents.
I'm keen for you to buy me presents.

He's keen on his brother playing for Liverpool.
He's keen for his brother to play for Liverpool.

We're keen on our daughter getting into Harvard.
We're keen for our daughter to get into Harvard.
 

Tdol

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Yes I know that following a preposition we use the ..ing form, but...between "keen on" and "taking part" we have " the students", so is this still the case?


Yes, because the words in the middle don't override the fact that it is keen on...taking part.
 

Madeline2000

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The same rule applies.

I'm keen on you buying me presents.
I'm keen for you to buy me presents.

He's keen on his brother playing for Liverpool.
He's keen for his brother to play for Liverpool.

Thank you, but as "for" is also a preposition, looking at your examples, it doesn't follow the same rule?
 
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emsr2d2

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Thank you, but as "for" is also a preposition, looking at your examples, it doesn't follow the same rule?

I simply meant that "keen on" is followed by the -ing form, regardless of the other words in the sentence or their position.
 

jutfrank

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I'm keen on you buying me presents.
I'm keen for you to buy me presents.

He's keen on his brother playing for Liverpool.
He's keen for his brother to play for Liverpool.

We're keen on our daughter getting into Harvard.
We're keen for our daughter to get into Harvard.

Thank you, but as "for" is also a preposition, looking at your examples, it doesn't follow the same rule?

You're right—it doesn't.

I think this is because there's something special about for. Firstly, for, when it functions as complementizer, needs an overt subject. So, if we remove his brother from both clauses:

He's keen on playing football. :tick:
He's keen for to play football. :cross:


Secondly, I think for can only work with a to-infinitive clause, and never an -ing clause.

He's keen for his brother to play football. :tick:
He's keen for his brother playing football. :cross:

I might suggest one of the moderators moves this question into the Analysing Sentences forum, with the hope that one of our grammar experts might see it and give a more complete/accurate answer.
 

TheParser

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Madeline, I notice that you are a teacher, so I respectfully wish to raise a (minor?) point.

Some people here in the United States prefer to use the possessive before the gerund (-ing form of the verb). Therefore, they would use an apostrophe in writing: "They are keen on the students' learning English."

If I use pronouns, maybe the matter may be more clearly understood.

1. "Mr. Jones does not like HIS marrying his daughter this month." = The possessive emphasizes "marrying." Maybe Mr. Jones feels that the weather will be very bad and dangerous for such a ceremony.

2. "Mr. Jones does not like HIM marrying his daughter this month." = This sentence means, to some people, that Mr. Jones does not like that young man.

It is important to note that most people do not follow this "rule." If they were to see No. 2, they would interpret it as No. 1. But I thought that you should be aware of this theory just in case one of your well-read students ever raised the matter with you.


Source: House and Harman, Descriptive English Grammar (1931 and 1950), page 319.
 

Tdol

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My Mother, a grammar traditionalist born in the 1930s, has given up on this "rule" winning out.
 
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The teachers are keen on the students taking part in the activities.

How about, according to WHAT I WAS TAUGHT, who take can be replaced with (or shortened to) taking, as "The teachers are keen on the students who take (or taking) part in the activities"?

(1) are keen on someone --> liking someone very much or being interested in someone (according to Oxford dictionary)
(2) taking or who take here are grammatically acceptable, functioning as elaborating WHAT KIND of THE students. (Of course, these two forms are slightly different in meaning and rhetoric, WHICH most teachers from where I live are unable to explain.)
(3) -ing indicates
the active voice.
 
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GoesStation

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Keen on (British English) the students' taking part: the teachers like the idea that the students participate.
Keen on the students who take part: the teachers like the students.

Sentence one can be understood as meaning the same thing without the apostrophe, but it's ambiguous. You should avoid this construction because it isn't clear. I'd say The teachers are happy that the students are participating in the activities.
 
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jutfrank

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The teachers are keen on the students taking part in the activities.

How about, according to WHAT I WAS TAUGHT, who take can be replaced with (or shortened to) taking, as "The teachers are keen on the students who take (or taking) part in the activities"?

(1) are keen on someone --> liking someone very much or being interested in someone (according to Oxford dictionary)
(2) taking or who take here are grammatically acceptable, functioning as elaborating WHAT KIND of THE students. (Of course, these two forms are slightly different in meaning and rhetoric, WHICH most teachers from where I live are unable to explain.)
(3) -ing indicates
the active voice.

You've got most of this basically right, yes, but allow me to make some minor corrections.

You can understand taking as a reduction of who are taking, yes, (not who take) which is in the active voice, yes, and with progressive aspect.

You're also right that understood in this way, the noun phrase the students taking part in the activities identifies which students (not which kind) the teachers are not keen on. This is a possible, but very different, and probably incorrect interpretation of the sentence.
 
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Keen on (British English) the students' taking part: the teachers like the idea that the students participate.
Keen on the students who take part: the teachers like the students.

Sentence one can be understood as meaning the same thing without the apostrophe, but its ambiguous. You should avoid this construction because it isn't clear. I'd say The teachers are happy that the students are participating in the activities.

Thanks for the reply!

I would like to make some points for discussion and clarification: (1) the difference between "N's + Ving" and "N + Ving"; (2) the difference between "be + adjective +prep + N/N's + Ving" and "transitive verb or phrasal verb + N/N's +Ving".

(1) To me, "... the students' taking part..." and "... the students taking part..." have different meanings. The focus of "... the students' taking part..." is on WHAT the students have been doing (It sounds like, for instance, a habit or something the students do for many times), while "... the students taking part..." emphasizes "the action done ACTIVELY" (Which is the reason why V-ing is considered an active voice).
(2) "keen" here is an adjective, indicating "the state" rather than "the action" (More specifically, it's different from "I don't mind you/your smoking here" or "He insisted on his daughter('s) returning with him"). I mean...Could the part of speech in this case ("be keen on someone" and "mind/ insist on someone") determine what "... take part in..." turns out to be, as shown in the following options?
(A) ... the students' taking part in ...
(B) ... the students taking part in ...
(C) ... the students who take part in...
(D) ... the students who are taking part in...
If not, I suppose that each sentence has its own meaning that is different from the other three. And the reduction mentioned above is to shift one "focus" to another.

Context really matters. A single sentence may have different interpretations, or even worse, lead to ambiguity.
 
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You've got most of this basically right, yes, but allow me to make some minor corrections.

You can understand taking as a reduction of who are taking, yes, (not who take) which is in the active voice, yes, and with progressive aspect.

You're also right that understood in this way, the noun phrase the students taking part in the activities identifies which students (not which kind) the teachers are not keen on. This is a possible, but very different, and probably incorrect interpretation of the sentence.

Thank you for the correction! Much appreciated!

> You can understand taking as a reduction of who are taking, yes, (not who take) which is in the active voice, yes, and with progressive aspect.

Yes, "who are taking" is another possible sentence before the reduction. As for "who take" reduced to "taking", what I was taught is that "who" can be crossed out, which makes an incorrect sentence (that is, two verbs in one sentence); to avoid the incorrectness, the verb "take" should be changed into either "present participle" or "past participle", depending on the antecedent. (<<< I ain't sure if this explanation makes sense to native speakers.)

Back to the topic of the thread, it should take more than one sentence or the context to get closer to the correct interpretation of the sentence.
 
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jutfrank

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Yes, "who are taking" is another possible sentence before the reduction. As for "who take" reduced to "taking", what I was taught is that "who" can be crossed out, which makes an incorrect sentence (that is, two verbs in one sentence); to avoid the incorrectness, the verb "take" should be changed into either "present participle" or "past participle", depending on the antecedent. (<<< I ain't sure if this explanation makes sense to native speakers.)
Right. I see what your teacher was trying to teach you but this explanation quite understandably doesn't give a full picture. Let me show you:

Remember that we're looking at phrases that identify:

I like students who work hard.

The defining relative clause who work hard identifies which students I like. Now, it is not possible (keeping the same identifying meaning) to reduce the clause as follows:

*I like students working hard.

However, when the reduction comes from the progressive aspect, it is possible:

I like the students who are working hard.
I like the students working hard.

Is that clear? When you reduce with an -ing participle, you generally keep the same progressive aspect (a notable exception is with copula verbs), and obviously cast in the same active voice.


Back to the topic of the thread, it should take more than one sentence or the context to get closer to the correct interpretation of the sentence.

That's right, yes. This is one of the drawbacks of analysing isolated, non-contextualised sentences. The correct interpretation is the one that matches most closely the thought in the speaker's mind.
 
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Right. I see what your teacher was trying to teach you but this explanation quite understandably doesn't give a full picture. Let me show you:

Remember that we're looking at phrases that identify:

I like students who work hard.

The defining relative clause who work hard identifies which students I like. Now, it is not possible (keeping the same identifying meaning) to reduce the clause as follows:

*I like students working hard.

Thanks for the clarification.

In that case, the relative clauses in the following sentences should not be reduced to Ving, right?
(1) Math teacher asks Fred to help Eric who has difficulty doing his math homework. --> Math teacher asks Fred to help Eric having(???) difficulty doing his math homework.
(2) Last week, there was a strong typhoon which caused a huge damage. --> Last week, there was a strong typhoon causing(???) a huge damage.

Or if the reduction of these two sentences is acceptable, is it because of the verb "like" that makes "I like students working hard" unacceptable?
 

jutfrank

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1) That's right—it can't be reduced to an -ing participle, because the present tense clause who has difficulty is in the simple aspect, which means he has difficulty generally and not just at that particular moment.

2) This is different. I don't think there warrants a reduction there. It is possible to make this kind of reduction from past simple relative clauses, but this sentence is not a good candidate for that.

No, the verb like has nothing to do with it (if I understand your question correctly).
 
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1) That's right—it can't be reduced to an -ing participle, because the present tense clause who has difficulty is in the simple aspect, which means he has difficulty generally and not just at that particular moment.

2) This is different. I don't think there warrants a reduction there. It is possible to make this kind of reduction from past simple relative clauses, but this sentence is not a good candidate for that.

No, the verb like has nothing to do with it (if I understand your question correctly).

Thank you for patiently answering my questions!

Allow me to seek clarification of some points:
(1) There is no such thing as the reduction of "...Noun + who V..." to "...Noun + Ving...". The reason is that Ving in "...Noun + Ving..." does not have the identifying meaning.
(2) "I like students who are working hard" cannot be reduced to "I like students working hard"; "I like THE students who are working hard", however, can be reduced to "I like THE students working hard". Therefore, the definite article THE is the key to determining whether the reduction is valid or not.
(3) If (2) is correct, the definite article THE makes possible the reduction of "who work hard" to "working hard" in the example of "I like THE students who work hard". (The definite article THE here indicates that Ving has the identifying function.)

I couldn't help but wonder why there are so many English teachers from where I live who ambiguously tell students in English class that "who take", for example, can be reduced to "taking" (simply because Ving indicates an active voice) without knowing that Ving in any similar sentences does not have the identifying meaning and only refers to some particular moment".

Thanks again for your reply and patience!
 
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jutfrank

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(1) There is no such thing as the reduction of "...Noun + who V..." to "...Noun + Ving...". The reason is that Ving in "...Noun + Ving..." does not have the identifying meaning.

No, I certainly didn't mean to say there's no such thing. I was talking specifically about the examples in this thread. I can only go as far as to say that is a complicated area and so each sentence ought to be considered and interpreted on its own.

(2) "I like students who are working hard" cannot be reduced to "I like students working hard"; "I like THE students who are working hard", however, can be reduced to "I like THE students working hard". Therefore, the definite article THE is the key to determining whether the reduction is valid or not.

There was a reason I chose to use it, yes. This is because the definite article helps in 'defining' its noun phrase. In other words, it helps to show that the meaning is which students.

(3) If (2) is correct, the definite article THE makes possible the reduction of "who work hard" to "working hard" in the example of "I like THE students who work hard". (The definite article THE here indicates that Ving has the identifying function.)

Good question. I was concerned about this when I wrote the example. My answer is no, it doesn't make it possible, grammatically speaking, but rather it helps the listener interpret the participle clause as identifying. That is, you could say that students working hard is a reduction of students who work hard, but if you did, then the meaning would not be clear. To say that again: the sentence I like students working hard is a possible, but very likely incorrect interpretation of the sentence I like student who work hard, which has an 'identifying' meaning. A much better interpretation of I like students working hard is something like 'I like it when students work hard', which obviously has a very different meaning.

I couldn't help but wonder why there are so many English teachers from where I live who ambiguously tell students in English class that "who take", for example, can be reduced to "taking" (simply because Ving indicates an active voice) without knowing that Ving in any similar sentences does not have the identifying meaning and only refers to some particular moment".

I can only guess that there are several reasons for this. We can discuss those reasons if you think it would be useful to you.

I think that what a lot of people tend to ignore, or be unaware of, is that unlike syntax, semantics is not an exact science. Two identical sentences can have completely different meanings (different interpretations) in different contexts.
 
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