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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6910 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 28 23 August 2014 at 12:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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If it helps, the phrase "keep having to" shows up on 9 460 000 pages, according to a major search engine
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| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4083 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 10 of 28 23 August 2014 at 10:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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Woa, apparently "kept having to" is twice as more common as "keep having to":
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=kept+having+to %2C+keep+having+to&year_start=1900&year_end=2000&corpus=15&s moothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ckept%20having%20to%3B%2 Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ckeep%20having%20to%3B%2Cc0 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| napoleon Tetraglot Senior Member India Joined 5017 days ago 543 posts - 874 votes Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 11 of 28 23 August 2014 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"Kept having to" may indeed have more hits than "keep having to" but we must not forget that they mean two different things.
You're comparing apples to oranges. Not to put too fine a point on it, this construction is staple amongst native speakers. Us learners must accept it as it is. Just my 2 paise. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| gemiscorp Tetraglot Newbie Thailand Joined 3738 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, German, Thai, French | Message 12 of 28 04 September 2014 at 8:23am | IP Logged | |||||
It is redundant. If you say that you "kept having to tell her," the "repeatedly" is implied and thus adding it just creates redundancy. Leave out the redundancy. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 13 of 28 04 September 2014 at 10:51am | IP Logged | |||||
The gerund and infinitive are impersonal verb forms. Edited by Serpent on 04 September 2014 at 10:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 14 of 28 04 September 2014 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
In the sentence in question, there is a definite subject. Impersonal verb forms have nothing to do with it. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 28 04 September 2014 at 7:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
Let's build it up piece by piece and see. :-) - "I have to go to the store this afternoon. Do you need me to buy anything?" This means "need to" or "must." - "I don't like having to shave every morning. It's a waste of time." A perfectly ordinary verb form. - "I keep opening this window, but every time I come back into the room, it's closed. What's going on?" This indicates repeated action, with the implication that something isn't working as expected, or that it shouldn't have been necessary. - "I kept having to ask him to stop browsing the web and actually do his job." Now we put it together, and it's starting to sound like the speaker is annoyed. - "I kept repeatedly having to ask him to stop browsing the web at work, so I fired him." Now we're very heavily emphasizing the idea that we had to do something many times, and that it shouldn't have been necessary. Yup. Perfectly normal English. It's in a slightly informal register, and the redundancy is intended for emphasis. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 16 of 28 04 September 2014 at 8:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
So what? I'm not saying it's an impersonal sentence. The sentence contains a conjugated verb and one more verb in an impersonal form. Gemuse seems to interpret the impersonal forms as personal/conjugated sometimes. "work on your understanding of the impersonal forms" is the same as "work on your understanding of the gerund and infinitive". 1 person has voted this message useful |
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