infinitive or -ing form?

[hooootdog]

please help! i always have problems on this, when to use infinitive or when to choose an -ing form. take this as an example: "

[FONT=&#23435]I considered it a great honor ___ to your home.[/FONT]​

[FONT=&#23435][/FONT][FONT=&#23435]A) to be invited B) being invited [/FONT]​

[FONT=&#23435]anybody tell me which one is the correct answer? is there any difference between them? if it does, when should we take an infinitive or when we use ing form? thanks a lot![/FONT]​

[FONT=&#23435][/FONT][FONT=&#23435] [/FONT]​

 

[corum]

Only A. B is possible with a sentence adverb interpretation. Highly implausible and constrained, though.

Being invited to your home, I considered it (1) a great honor.
=
I considered it (1) a great honor being invited to your home.

I considered it (2) a great honor to be invited to your home.

it (1) ≠ it (2)

it (2) = empty pronoun
it (1) = :?: not derivable from the context

 

[2006]

please help! i always have problems on this, when to use infinitive or when to choose an -ing form. take this as an example: "

[FONT=&#23435]I considered it a great honor ___ to your home.[/FONT]​

[FONT=&#23435]A) to be invited B) being invited [/FONT]​

[FONT=&#23435]anybody tell me which one is the correct answer? is there any difference between them? if it does, when should we take an infinitive or when we use ing form? thanks a lot![/FONT]​

I consider(ed) it a great honor to be invited to your home. :tick:
I consider(ed) being invited to your home a great honor. :tick:

 

[2006]

Being invited to your home, I considered it (1) a great honor.
=
I considered it (1) a great honor being invited to your home.

I wouldn't use either of the above two sentences. The first one doesn't express the intended meaning clearly, and the second one is a somewhat awkward version of the second sentence in my post above.

2006

 

[Raymott]

You can say:
I considered [that] being invited to you home [was] a great honour.
I considered being invited to you home a great honour.
(I considered your invitation a great honour.)

To the wider question of how you decide, the easiest way is to learn this by experience. You'll eventually get a feel for it.

 

[hooootdog]

thanks for all the helps! i've got it now

 

[Eric Davis]

You can say:
I considered [that] being invited to you home [was] a great honour.
I considered being invited to you home a great honour.
(I considered your invitation a great honour.)

To the wider question of how you decide, the easiest way is to learn this by experience. You'll eventually get a feel for it.

I didn't know that you can extract verbs from a noun clause in this manner. Can you offer more examples?


I thought that she was fragile.
I thought she fragile.

I thought that being young was a curse.
I thought being young a curse.

I believe that her question is ridiculous.
I believe her question ridiculous.

Feed me... I need more info concerning this. :shock:

 

[Raymott]

I didn't know that you can extract verbs from a noun clause in this manner. Can you offer more examples?

I thought that she was fragile.
I thought she fragile.

I thought that being young was a curse.
I thought being young a curse.

I believe that her question is ridiculous.
I believe her question ridiculous.

Feed me... I need more info concerning this. :shock:

Here's another, and perhaps better, lengthening of that sentence:
"I considered being invited to you home [to be] a great honour.
"I considered it to be a great honour."
It doesn't work with all verbs, and perhaps 'considered' is unusual.
But you are taking away words from a good sentence whereas I added words to a good sentence.Here are some valid examples of what you're trying to do:

The judge found that the man was guilty.
The judge found the man to be guilty.
The judge found him guilty.

The doctor pronounced that the man was dead.
The doctor pronounced the man to be dead.
The doctor pronounced him dead.

Maybe you can think of some other verbs that work this way?

 

[mmasny]

I thought she fragile.

Maybe it will make the matter more intuitive if I reword this sentence this way:

I thought her fragile.

It's still incorrect (I think!) but it shows the thing better in my opinion.

It is not just cutting a part of the sentence off. It's using the verb as transitive instead of using it as intransitive.

 

[2006]

I thought her fragile.
The sentence above is a shortened form of 'I thought of her as being fragile.'

It's a good sentence.

 

[Eric Davis]

My thanks to everyone for your contributions. Thank you! :up: