1. Gerunds & Infinitives

2. Gerunds • What do you know?

3. Infinitives • What do you know?

4. Form & Function • Gerunds and infinitives are interesting because they look like verbs, but they act like nouns. • Form: • Gerunds: verb + ing (swimming, talking, listening to) • Infinitives: to + verb (to swim, to talk, to listen to)

5. Both G & I • Can be used to make general statements: • Studying English is fun! • It is fun to study English. (Use “it” as subject) • To study English is fun. (very formal, not often used)

6. Gerund Function • Function: • Act as subject of sentence: • Swimming in the ocean is thrilling. • Act as object of sentence: • Ben likes swimming in the ocean. • His mother doesn’t like hisswimming in the ocean. • His mother doesn’t like Ben’sswimming in the ocean. • INFORMAL: His mother doesn’t like him swimming in the ocean.

7. Gerund Function • Act as object of a preposition*: • She dreamed about going to Italy one day. • We are interested inlearning about grammar. • *Notice that the preposition might follow a verb or it might follow an adjective. • Infinitives do not follow prepositions.

8. Which of these are gerunds? • Playing soccer is good exercise. • The person who is playing soccer is my brother. • My brother is playing soccer with his team. • He loves playing soccer.

9. Infinitive Function • Follow special verbs: • Verb + Infinitive • I liketo teach English. • Verb + Object + Infinitive • I will convince you to speak English in the classroom. • Verb + Infinitive OR Verb + Object + Infinitive • I wantto study for the test. I want you to study for the test.

10. Infinitive Function (cont) • Follow Adjectives: • The students were excitedto take the test. • Follow Nouns: • It’s timeto take a break. • Explain Purpose: • We studyto pass our tests. • This is the same as: We studyin order to pass our tests.

11. Tricky things: • Some verbs can be followed by either the G or the I and the meanings are the same: • We started studying grammar last week. • We started to study grammar last week. • There are a few SPECIAL VERBS that have a different meaning when they’re followed by a G or by an I. • I stopped smoking = I quit smoking. • I stopped to smoke = I quit what I was doing and smoked a cigarette.

12. More trickiness: • “To” is tricky! • Sometimes it’s a preposition of direction: • I am going to Marcie’s office. • Sometimes it’s part of an infinitive: • I love to go to Marcie’s office. • Sometimes it’s part of a phrasal verb: • I am looking forward to going to Marcie’s office.

13. Which are infinitives? • We are beginning to realize this class is hard! • We walked to the cinema, but the movie was canceled. • They can’t wait to see each other next week. • She was accustomed to studying every night. • He offered to pay for her dinner.

14. Your job: • Memorize, memorize, memorize (p. A-2, A-3, A-4) • Practice, practice, practice!