A child is responsible followed by which structure.

[JACEK1]

It's me again!

There is a question I have for you about which structure is most appropriate.

A child is responsible to his father to make a proper decision.

A child is responsible to his father for making a proper decision.

A child is responsible before his father to make a proper decision.

I think sentence 2 and 3 are properly constructed, but I am not sure about sentence 1. Could you help me to unravel this "mystery"? Thank you.

I made the sentences up myself.

 

[5jj]

Sorry, but none of them make real sense to me. In that children are often not capable of making informed decisions, it can hardly be claimed that children are responsible to anyone for the appropriateness of their decisions. I also believe that we should accept the possibility that a child can be female.

 

[JACEK1]

Thank you 5jj. It is really hard for me to talk about context when these sentences were made up by me. Let's not go into details for the time being and please tell me whether the structures themselves are proper.
X is responsible to Y to infinitive.

X is responsible to Y for -ing form.

X is responsible before X to infinitive.

Thank you.

 

[bhaisahab]

Thank you 5jj. It is really hard for me to talk about context when these sentences were made up by me. Let's not go into details for the time being and please tell me whether the structures themselves are proper.
X is responsible to Y to infinitive.

X is responsible to Y for -ing form.

X is responsible before X to infinitive.

Thank you.

Only the second structure works, IMO.

 

[JACEK1]

Thank you, bhaisahab.

 

[BobK]

:up: ...In fact, I've seldom met the expression 'responsible before X'. I think some Christians talk about people being 'responsible before God for <verb>ing', but that is using 'responsible' in a particular sense - that pays particular attention to the Latin respondere [='to answer'] (they will be called to account and held answerable for their actions).

b
PS Please note that this is not the place to debate the rights and wrongs of this belief. I'm simply saying that holders of this belief use this expression. Holders of similar beliefs with different cultural backgrounds may do too. ;-)

 

[JACEK1]

Thank you, BobK.

 

[Rover_KE]

Your thanks are appreciated, JACEK1, but you don't need to send them in a separate post.

We are all happy to accept a simple click on the Like button as your acknowledgement of our help.

Rover:-D