Skip to main content

word usage - "stop to do something" vs. "continue to do something"


A transcript of a recent speech by Barack Obama contains the following sentence:



Boston police, firefighters, and first responders as well as the National Guard responded heroically, and continue to do so as we speak.



The usage of continue in this case contrasts what I have learned about the verb to stop, as in



We stopped to let the pedestrians pass the crosswalk, so the car did not move.


We stopped letting the pedestrians pass the crosswalk, so I accelerated.



I suppose that these three examples are grammatically correct. People like me, who learned English as a second language, could misunderstand Obama's usage of continue as



[...] and continue (with doing something) in order to do so



I do not believe this is the actual intention. I conclude that this to do vs. doing issue is not a general pattern, but rather a restricted phenomenon. So my questions are:




  1. Is it correct that the aforementioned phenomenon is only relevant for a few verbs? If yes, could somebody provide a list of these verbs?




  2. Is it helpful, to regard the verb to stop as a homonym, where one version of to stop refers to a process of ceasing movement, while the other version is an auxiliary verb followed by a gerund?





Answer



There are a lot of different kinds of infinitive. The infinitive to smoke in



  • He stopped to smoke.


(as Colin and Fluffy have already pointed out) is a Purpose infinitive, a kind of adverbial clause answering Why?, which one may introduce with in order to, or move to the front of the sentence,



  • He stopped in order to smoke.

  • In order to smoke, he stopped.


in order to distinguish it from more common types of postverbal infinitive, like the to smoke in



  • He began/started to smoke.


which is an infinitive object complement clause, a kind of noun clause that is the direct object of began or start, representing the activity (or when generic, the habitual activity) that the subject began or started.


Begin and start are also alike in that they can take infinitive complements, like the sentence above, as well as gerund complements, like the one below



  • He began/started smoking.


which is synonymous with the second sentence.


However, stop, unlike begin and start, does not allow an infinitive complement, though it does allow a gerund. Thus, any infinitive following stop can't be an infinitive complement clause, and the next likely reading is as a purpose infinitive clause.


Both are common uses for stop, and this little curlicue helps distinguish them. English, and every language, like anything alive, is full of baroque details like this.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

etymology - Origin of the greeting "Sweet dreams".

Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

What are the similarities between the relationships of the characters in The Outsiders and Romeo and Juliet?

At first glance, it might appear as if the characters in  The Outsiders  by S. E. Hinton and  Romeo and Juliet  by William Shakespeare do not have much in common; however, when one isolates the core of the conflicts, it becomes clear that the relationships in both stories are rooted in rivalry and secrecy.  In both  The Outsiders  and  Romeo and Juliet , an overarching theme is rivalry. While   socioeconomic status separates the greasers from the Socs in The Outsiders , last names separates the Montagues from the Capulets, who appear to be relatively equal in terms of socioeconomic status. Due to these rivalries, there are instances of deadly interactions in both stories. In  The Outsiders , Johnny kills Bob (whether his actions were justified or not is debatable). In  Romeo and Juliet , Romeo kills Tybalt and Paris, and Tybalt kills Mercutio. These deaths have profound effects on the main characters. In Ponyboy's case, the Johnny's death and other events in the novel inspire h...
Post a Comment
Read more