Which verb form is grammatically correct here? My intuition says 'satisfy' but a textbook I'm reading says otherwise (Core Syntax: A Minimalist Approach. If interested, a legal copy is available here).
Asked
Active
Viewed 141 times
1 Answers
7
This is actually interesting. I started to write a flip comment but then I thought about it a little more.
The truth is, it could go either way, depending on what you mean.
If you mean the two things are independently satisfying, use satisfy. Using A and B for shorthand, we get:
A satisfies me. B satisfies me. But A and B satisfy me.
If you mean both conditions happening at the same time are necessary for your satisfaction, creating a unitary satisfaction which would fail the satisfaction test if either were missing, choose satisfies.
A verbing and B verbing satisfies me.
Robusto
- 151,571
-
"I started to write a flip comment but then I thought about it a little more." Same thing happened to me. +1 for not waiting for someone else to answer. – anongoodnurse Jun 28 '15 at 02:03
-
Heck, you could even say "Bill reading Shakespeare and Maureen singing Schubert back to back satisfies me." – rhetorician Jun 28 '15 at 02:21