Question posted in my Facebook Messages board by Sayyid of Azad Kashmir Province, Pakistan (January 24, 2019): Hello Jose,
I need your help to understand the usage of progressive and passive perfect infinitive.
My reply to Sayyid:I'm perfectly willing to help you with what you need, but we need to first clarify and agree on the precise terminology for the two grammatical forms you want to learn more about. I must tell you that it's my very first time to hear the terms "progressive perfect infinitive" and "passive perfect infinitive." My feeling is that you actually meant to ask about the two forms of the
verbal in the perfect tense, namely the
perfect infinitive and the
perfect gerund.
Let me explain why I think this is the case.
I'm sure you'll recall that by definition, a
verbal is a form of a verb that's functioning not as a verb but as a different part of speech. Verbals are of three kinds:
(1) The infinitive. This is a verbal formed by placing
to in front of the simple present form of a verb, as in "to sing"; an infinitive may function as a noun, adjective, or adverb. The infinitive as noun: "
To win was her goal." The infinitive as adjective: "She thought it was too early
to leave." The infinitive as adverb: "It took only a minor stumble for the runner
to lose."
(2) The gerund. This is a verbal ending in "-ing" that functions as a noun, as in "walking" in the sentence "
Walking is a good form of exercise" and "Every weekend he goes
swimming."
(3) The participle. This is a verbal that functions as an adjective. It is of two kinds, the
present participle, a form that always end in "-ing," and the
past participle, usually ending in "-ed' or "-en," which is created from the form of a verb used with the verb to be as an auxiliary verb (passive voice), as in "The phenomenon
was observed last night" and "The loot
was taken by the thieves this morning."
Finally, the
perfect form is the verb tense used in English to indicate a completed, or "perfected," action or condition. There are three perfect tenses--the present perfect, the past perfect, and the future perfect--and verbs in the perfect form use a form of "have" or "had" + the past participle.
If that quick review of the three forms of verbals has sufficiently jogged your memory about how they function in English, it may have already dawned on you that by "progressive perfect infinitive" you actually meant "perfect infinitive" and that by "passive perfect infinitive" you actually meant "perfect gerund." If this in fact is the case, then I feel pretty sure that the following two essays that I wrote about these two grammar forms way back in February 2016 should be able give you a clear grasp of their usage:
TWO IMPORTANT BUT HARDLY DISCUSSED GRAMMAR FORMSTwo important grammatical forms that I don’t recall having taken up at length in the Forum are the perfect infinitive and the perfect gerund.
The
perfect infinitive has the form “to have + the past participle or ‘-ed’ form of the verb,” as in “She declared with great fervor
to have conformed to all the qualifications required of presidential candidates, but that declaration has been challenged in court.” The
perfect gerund, which is a verb form with “-ing” affixed to it to make it function as a noun, differs from the simple gerund in two respects: it always refers to a time before that of the verb in the main clause, and it is only used if the occurrence of the action expressed by the gerund is not obvious from the context of the statement.
I - The form and uses of the perfect infinitiveLet’s take up the perfect infinitive first.
The
perfect infinitive has this form: “to have + the past participle or ‘-ed’ form of the verb,” as in the sentence “She
declared with great fervor
to have met all the qualifications required of presidential candidates, but that declaration has been challenged in court.” Working with a main verb in the sentence (“declared” in the example given), the perfect infinitive (“to have met”) often refers to things that might have happened in the past. However, the perfect infinitive form can also used to refer to an action that will be completed at some point in the future, as in “The company
hopes with great expectations
to have finished its restructuring by April.”
We can see that this form differs from the
simple infinitive that we are more familiar with, as in the sentence “They
want her
to drop her candidacy.” In such sentences, the action in the simple infinitive (“to drop” in the example given) coincides in time or is simultaneous with the action of the main verb (“want”).
Sentences that use the perfect infinitive often mean the same thing as
their perfect tense or past tense equivalent. Take a look at these examples: “He is ecstatic
to have attained his quarterly sales quota.” (“He is ecstatic
that he has attained his quarterly sales quota.”) “She regrets
to have turned down his marriage proposal.” (‘She regrets
that she had turned down his marriage proposal.”) “The board seems
to have lost confidence in you.” (It seems
that the board has lost confidence in you.”)
The perfect infinitive can also be used in a clause with a verb that has no subject to refer to events that did happen in the past or to events that might have happened but didn’t happen, as in these examples: “
To have earned the highest honors in class despite being blind was an outstanding feat.” (The blind student did get the highest honors.) “
To have won the debating championship would have been great, but even landing third runner-up was a great consolation.” (The debater lost the championship.)
Now let’s take a look at the usage of the perfect infinitive “to have been.” This special form of the perfect infinitive has two applications, namely:
1. As a noun form to denote a hypothetical state or condition in the past, or a state or condition in the past that has been determined to be true only now: As subject of the sentence: “
To have been his associate would have boosted her political career.” As complement: “It’s great imagining
to have been her costar in that movie.” As adverbial modifier: “The legislator was found
to have been unqualified for public office in the first place.”
2. As a noun form to denote a state or action in the past that is no longer subsisting (used with the passive form of such telling verbs as “say,” “believe,” “consider,” “assume,” “suppose,” and “think”): “He is reputed
to have been an outstanding student leader in the 1960s.” “She is widely thought
to have been the most beautiful woman of her time.”
This essay first appeared in the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times
in its February 7, 2016 issue, © 2016 by Manila Times Publishing. All rights reserved.II - The form and uses of the perfect gerundIn the previous discussion we took up
the perfect infinitive as a grammatical form that, in tandem with the main verb of a sentence, either refers to things that might have happened in the past, as in “The board seems
to have lost confidence in you,” or to an action that will be completed at some point in the future, as in “The company hopes with great expectations
to have finished its restructuring by April.” This time we will take up in greater detail the form and uses of
the perfect gerund.
Recall that a
gerund is a verb form with “-ing” affixed to it to make it function as a noun, as in the sentence “The therapist suggested
jogging as a simple antidote to lethargy.” Here, “jogging” is a gerund that serves as the direct object of the verb “suggested.” It has no tense and does not in itself indicate the time when its action takes place.
A
simple gerund can refer to the same time as that of the verb in the main clause, as in “She loves
listening to classical music” (where the act of “listening” happens at the same time as “loving” it), or it can refer to a time before that of the verb in the main clause, as in “He regretted
not joining the literary club when he was in college” (where the decision of “not joining the literary club” obviously happened before “regretting” that decision).
In contrast,
a perfect gerund differs from the simple gerund in two respects: (1) It always refers to a time before that of the verb in the main clause, and (2) It is only used if the occurrence of the action expressed by the gerund is not obvious from the context of the statement.
The perfect gerund has the form “having been + past participle of the verb,” as in this example: “She denied
having been divorced.” Here, the perfect gerund “having been divorced” is used to make it unmistakably clear that such marital status refers to a time before the woman’s denial. On the other hand, in the sentence “She denied
being divorced,” the simple gerund “being divorced” is used to indicate that the woman was indeed not a divorcee precisely at the same time that she denied it.
Perfect gerunds of certain verbs can also take the passive form, as in “She complained of
having been unfairly bypassed for promotion.” Here, the passive perfect gerund “having been unfairly bypassed” functions as a complement of the verb “complained.” The sense is that the bypassing of the woman for promotion happened at a time before that of the verb “complained.” (By the way, that sentence using the passive perfect gerund is the equivalent of the complex sentence “She complained that she has been unfairly bypassed for promotion,” where the present perfect passive form “has been unfairly bypassed” is used.
A special form of the perfect gerund is “having been,” where the verb “be” in the perfect gerund isn’t followed by the usual action verb but by a noun or noun phrase instead. This form is used to denote a state or condition that no longer subsists at the time of speaking, as in these sentence constructions:
1. A sentence using a perfect gerund as subject: “
Having been a student journalist is a big advantage to mass communication majors.”
2. A sentence using a perfect gerund as object of the preposition “about”: “Edna very seldom talked about
having been a beauty queen.”
3. A sentence using a perfect gerund as direct object of the verb: “The former long-serving CEO hated
having been a dummy all along.”
This winds up our two-part discussion of the perfect infinitive and the perfect gerund.
This essay first appeared in the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times
in its February 13, 2016 issue, © 2016 by Manila Times Publishing. All rights reserved.
