Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Instead taking

"My father, the son of Italian immigrants, never made it to high school, instead taking a job in a factory ad 
the age of 13".
Mi sapreste spiegare il perché di quel gerundio dopo "instead"? Io avrei banalmente scritto "took".
Un'altra domanda...
Secondo Swan la frase "My father, whom we hope will be out of hospital soon,..." è sbagliata e al posto di 
whom andrebbe whom. 

 soon,..." č sbagliata e al posto di whom andrebbe whom.
Ci andrebbe "who", dici? Sě, perché č soggetto della relativa.
Ciao,
Enrico il Pentolaio.
-- 
Si contra fa est diabolus in musica.

 Ci andrebbe "who", dici? Sě, perché č soggetto della relativa.
Sě, ho sbagliato a scrivere.. "who" al posto di "whom". Comunque credo di aver capito... č come se fosse:
"My father, who (we hope) will be out....." 

 soon,..." è sbagliata e al posto di whom andrebbe whom.
Uh?

 soon,..." č sbagliata e al posto di whom andrebbe whom.
My father, who - we hope - will be ...
Kiuhnm

 prendendo invece...
You could also say:
My father, taking a job in a factory at the age of 13, never made it to 
high school.
Kiuhnm

 prendendo invece...
It was that simple. Ok.


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Mi sembra plausibile...
Forse la stranezza era dovuta al fatto che la frase fosse al passato. Gli esempi di Enrico C, invece, sono al 
presente, e lì "instead taking" già mi suona meno singolare.
Thanks. 


'instead' is an adverb (qualifying 'taking') , not a conjunction ; if you 
want to use 'took' , you'd have to say : 'My father... never made it to high 
school ; instead he took a job in a factory' . (You have to provide the 
subject 'he' for 'took' - it's a separate sentence.)
('taking' - present participle , not gerund)
Mike 

 Kiuhnm
Gennaro 

 che _di conseguenza_ non e' mai riuscito ad arrivare alla high school.
I wasn't try to be faithful, but, on second thought, they could be 
equivalent.
"Mio padre, figlio d'immigranti italiani, non arrivò mai alla scuola 
superiore, iniziando a lavorare in una fabbrica all'età di tredici anni."
That doesn't sound completely right, does it?
What about
"Mio padre, figlio d'immigranti italiani, non arrivò mai alla scuola 
superiore, dato che iniziò a lavorare in una fabbrica all'età di tredici 
anni."
That's what we(?) usually did in Latin when we had an "ablativo 
assoluto" (We could say "Dovendo...", or "Dato che...", or "Poiché...", 
etc...). That is, a causality is probably implied.
But I'm not 100% sure. I've never studied these kinds of constructions 
in detail (in English).
Kiuhnm

 esempi di Enrico C, invece, sono al presente,
Il primo era al passato: "TONY Blair yesterday refused...".

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Sì, se fosse stato congiunzione avrei trovato 'of' dopo.
Comunque, se è un participio presente, una (letterale e improbabile) traduzione in italiano si complicherebbe:
"Mio padre, figlio di immigranti, non frequentò mai la scuola superiore, che iniziò (??) invece a 
lavorare......."
Un italiano non userebbe mai una proposizione relativa in quel modo, e per questo tale costruzione dà qualche 
problema a un non madrelingua. 

 ('taking' - present participle , not gerund)
Mymo said "gerundio", not "gerund".
Here's an example of "gerundio":
"Avendo perso le chiavi, decisi di rinunciare."
In English we would have:
"My having lost the keys made me decide to give up."
But wikipedia says:
"Traditional English grammar distinguished between gerunds and present 
participles. Both terms refer to the non-finite verb form ending in -ing 
(standing, swimming, etc.); traditionally, the former was applied when 
the verb form was acting in some sense like a noun (say, as the subject 
or subject of a verb or preposition), and the latter when it was acting 
in some sense like an adjective. The analogous distinction is very clear 
in Latin, where gerunds and participles are declined as nouns or 
adjectives, but the line is blurrier in English, and many modern 
linguists reject this distinction. The Cambridge Grammar of the English 
Language, a widely respected descriptive grammar by Rodney Huddleston 
and Geoffrey Pullum, uses the term gerund-participle, and lists its 
various uses without commenting on which might be considered nominal and 
which adjectival."
Kiuhnm

 Mymo said "gerundio", not "gerund".
To be precise, taking is neither gerund nor gerundio.
Mymo was evidently thinking of the Italian translation.
Kiuhnm

 banalmente scritto "took".
In My opinion: non finì mai le superiori, accettando invece un lavoro... 
(ecc)
 taking a job, instead of finishing the school--> instead (of finishing...) 
taking a job.
Credo che la mia idea sia giusta ma formulata in modo pessimo, se qualcuno 
me la migliora...

 wrote in message 
news:uuVAj.263541$%k.38...@twister2.libero.it...

?? a literal translation of this present participle would be 'Mio padre ... 
non frequento' mai la scuola superiore , invece iniziando a lavorare....'
Basically , in English , the 'ing' form of the verb is either a present 
participle or a gerund ; the present participle (when not part of a compound 
verb) is used as an adjective (as is the past participle) , and the gerund 
is used as a noun .
Mike 

 "My having lost the keys made me decide to give up."
If you wish to use a gerund ,yes; but I would translate it 'Having lost the 
keys, I decided to give up.' - participle .
Despite what wikipedia says (below,end) , this distinction between gerund 
and participle seems to me to be very clear , and certainly in practice to 
help the non-native speaker a great deal (as in the case in question) .


 question) .
In which way should this distinction be useful?
It certainly was in Latin.
Kiuhnm

 lavorare....'
But that's what we would call gerundio in Italian!
Schematically:
   andando = gerundio presente
   essendo andato = gerundio passato
   andante = participio presente
   andato = participio passato
A literal translation would be "iniziante invece a lavorare...".
Kiuhnm

 wrote in message
news:47d587e5$0$10616$4faf...@reader2.news.tin.it...
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Ah , I see ! Thank you . Another of those problems of misleading terminology 
. I'd never really considered this before , and now I look at my (rather
elementary) Italian grammars I see that they all either avoid the question ,
or give explanations either partial ,  confused or wrong - e.g. 'In Italian 
the
present participle is formed by dropping the infinitive ending '-are' etc.
and adding '-ando' ...and '-endo'.'('Essential Italian Grammar'!) . Harrap's
'Italian Grammar' adopts translations of the Italian terms , i.e. present
gerund and perfect gerund , but makes no mention of what is normally called
the gerund in English , nor of how to render that in Italian .
So what in Italian do you call the English gerund (the verbal noun) ?
And when it's rendered by the infinitive in Italian , what name do you give 
to that ? (e.g. 'Il viaggiare e' costoso.')
Mike

 give to that ? (e.g. 'Il viaggiare e' costoso.')
"Il viaggiare" is a "proposizione infinitiva soggettiva".
A more complex sentence:
"Il /viaggiare/ comodamente seduti in carrozza č costoso, ma d'altra 
parte certamente piů gradevole del /trovarsi/ in groppa a un cavallo 
mentre la pioggia, nel suo incessante /cadere/, fa dell'/inzupparci/ 
dalla testa ai piedi la sua irrinunciabile ragion d'/essere/".
Kiuhnm


Thanks !
Mike