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Sometimes two grammar structures are hard to distinguish because their forms and/or meanings are similar
TRICKY CONTRASTS IN ENGLISH
As in most languages, it is quite common in English to find two items, whether of vocabulary or of grammar, whose meanings are not easy to differentiate. Although a few pairs of this kind are covered by most English coursebooks, and are as a result well-known, many are overlooked.
In this blog, posts with the above title consider rarely-explained meaning differences between grammatical structures that seem to say the same. For a list of all the posts, see 217. Tricky Grammar Contrasts 1. These structures are to be distinguished from similar-seeming ones that often cause grammar errors – separately considered under the heading Confusions of Similar Structures. For differences between confusingly similar vocabulary items, there are numerous posts entitled “Tricky Word Contrasts” (for a full list, plus an alphabetical list of all of the words in them, click here).
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EXPLANATIONS OF SIMILAR STRUCTURES
1. “nothing to see” versus “nothing to be seen”
These two expressions are a special case of an infinitive verb (with to) combining with a noun-like expression just before it (the pronoun nothing) so as to make a longer “noun phrase”. See is an “active” infinitive, with nothing its grammatical object, while be seen is “passive”, with nothing its subject. Both phrases indicate inability of an unmentioned “somebody” to see something, often within a sentence starting with there:
(a) There was nothing to see / be seen.
The typical meaning suggestion made by active infinitives used like this is “at any time”, while that made by passive ones is “now” or “in the near future” (see 239. Noun Phrases Made with a “to” Verb, second section).
I think this distinction applies here, but something else is implied too. The “any time” message of nothing to see suggests invisibility resulting from non-existence, whereas the specific-time message of nothing to be seen suggests invisibility resulting from absence or concealment.
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2. “could” versus “was able to”
These alternatives are actually mentioned quite often in grammar books, but are involved often enough in grammar errors to merit a mention here. One cause of problems is their non-combinability: you have to choose one or the other, not both together (*could be able to). Combining them is actually common in some English varieties, but not in Standard English (a term considered in this blog in the technical paper Should East African University students try to change the way they speak English?).
The main problem with could and was able to is that, although their present tense equivalents can and is able to mean the same, the change to the past creates a difference regarding whether or not the action actually took place. If we say The government was able to raise taxes, the message is that taxes were actually raised; was able to is a synonym of managed to. On the other hand, could raise taxes tells us only about a capability – that the power to raise taxes existed – without saying whether or not taxes were actually raised (see 288. Grammatical Subtleties, #4).
The most common error with these expressions is using could instead of was able to. The advice, therefore, is to stop before using could, consider whether or not the action actually happened, and change to was able to if it did.
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3. Fundamental versus Metaphorical Uses of OWE
The fundamental use of the verb OWE is money-related:
(b) The company owed $10 million to its creditors.
In this use, OWE is easily recognised as one of those verbs that can have both a “direct” object ($10 million) and an “indirect” one (its creditors). Here, the indirect object has to in front, but it can also be placed earlier without to (…owed its creditors $10 million). It can also be omitted. These are all typical features of indirect objects (see 126. Verbs with an Indirect Object).
In the metaphorical use of OWE, by contrast, the direct object does not mean something that has to be returned to its source in the future, but is instead a benefit resulting from a lucky circumstance or someone else’s generosity, represented by the indirect object. The meaning is more like “be caused by”:
(c) The company owes its success to the insight of its founder.
This use has two important grammatical differences: the indirect object (the insight…) cannot be dropped, and it cannot be placed directly after OWE, before the direct object, so that it always follows to at the end.
The multi-word preposition owing to, which also means “caused by”, is probably derived from this second use of OWE. For details of when to use it, see 72. Causal Prepositions.
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4. “from” versus “by” after Verb-Related Nouns
Some nouns are spelled similarly to a verb and express a related meaning. Examples are movement (like MOVE), reaction (like REACT), discovery (like DISCOVER) and change (same as CHANGE) (see 249. Action Noun Endings). A few nouns of this kind just express the same action meaning as the verb, and some only have a meaning that is not an action. Most, however, can express either of these meaning types (see 280. Alternative Meanings of Action Nouns). For example, discovery means either the action of discovering or a discovered item .
Verb-related nouns resemble verbs in another way too: they can often be accompanied by a noun (or equivalent) corresponding to the subject of the related verb’s active form. One way of including this noun is by placing it after a preposition: often by, but sometimes an alternative. Compare:
(d) Destruction of forests BY fire is not a total disaster.
(e) The arrival OF reinforcements brought relief.
To choose between by and of, you have to consider how the sentence would look if it was rephrased with the verb related to the action noun: DESTROY in (d) and ARRIVE in (e). If this verb has an object, the action noun’s “subject” will need by; otherwise it will need of (see 49. Prepositions after Action Nouns 2). With (d), the object of DESTROY would be forests.
The preposition from is another that can combine a verb-related noun with a subject-like one. However, it seems that the verb-related noun must usually not be expressing an action meaning, like this:
(f) The advice from the police is to stay at home.
Here, advice means not “the action of advising” but its outcome: a message about suitable behaviour.
Not every verb-related noun allows this use of from. Any preposition after non-action discovery, for example, is likely to be of (+ possessive noun) rather than from. Most nouns allowing from seem to be communication ones, other examples being agreement, argument, assertion, comment, confirmation, explanation, indication, instruction, opposition, pressure, recommendation, suggestion and warning (see 287. Speech and Thought Nouns). There are, however, some by-preferring exceptions, such as description, definition and prohibition.
An additional feature of from compared to by is an ability to name a less exact source. For example, where research by… would always clearly identify a researcher, research from… would only do so if the noun after it named a specific individual or small group. If this noun named an organization, from would often just indicate that the research had been done by unnamed employees within it rather than by all of it. This use of from is also evident in (f).
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5. Purpose Infinitive versus Sequence Infinitive
One of the numerous ways to use an infinitive (verb with to) is in an independent position with its associated words at the end of a sentence:
(g) Trainee doctors study anatomy to understand sickness.
Here, the infinitive to understand and its object sickness are not necessitated by the grammar of the sentence (as they would be, for example, if they directly followed is: see 119. BE before a “to” Verb). Leaving them out would still leave a grammatically possible sentence.
In most cases, this infinitive use expresses a purpose: in (g) it says understanding sickness is why doctors study anatomy (see 60. Purpose Sentences with “for”). Sometimes, however, infinitives in this position just express an event in a sequence, and not a purpose. This is not the usage after an earlier too or enough, words that are usually an explicit signal of a following result description (see 124. Structures with a Double Meaning 1, #7). Instead, it is as illustrated in the following sentence:
(h) Columbus crossed the Atlantic, to discover a whole new world.
This means discovering a whole new world merely followed Columbus’ voyage – it was not its purpose. A notable feature is the comma before the infinitive, which would often be absent if a purpose was being expressed, as in (g). Moreover, the infinitive and its partner words are not able to start the sentence – unlike purpose infinitives.
These characteristics do not mean, however, that any purpose infinitive can be turned into a sequence one just by adding a comma. For one thing, the same infinitive is not always logical or truthful as either a purpose or a sequential event: sentence (g) would be untrue if a result-showing comma was added, while (h) would be untrue without one.
In fact, sequence infinitives too sometimes lack a comma:
(i) The police arrived (at the scene) to find a shocking sight.
A comma is absent here, I think, because the first verb (arrived) has no object noun after it, unlike crossed in (h), which is followed by the Atlantic.
A key characteristic of sentences with a sequence infinitive is ability to be paraphrased with when, like this:
(j) When Columbus crossed the Atlantic, he discovered a whole new world.
However, not every when sentence can be paraphrased by means of a sequence infinitive:
(k) When the weather deteriorated, progress slowed.
What distinguishes (j) from (k) is that both of its verbs (underlined) have the same subject (Columbus/he). Note also that when sentences meeting this condition will still not be a paraphrase of a sequence infinitive if when means “while” or “as” rather than “after” (see 225. Simultaneous Occurrence, #2).
Two kinds of writing where sequence infinitives are especially likely to occur are descriptions of natural processes (see 210 Process Descriptions) and histories (see 282.Features of History Writing). Two variants of the usage are only to… (see 251. The Grammar of “Only”, #3) and never to… (see 269. Exotic Grammar Structures 7, #2).
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