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To run is good
Running is good

What is the difference in meaning?

John Lawler
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Majid
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    There's no meaning difference. Either one may be subject; or object -- which kind gets used depends on the main predicate (verb or predicate adjective; good here). That said, it is true that gerunds are much more common as subjects than infinitives are. Most subject infinitives get extraposed or subject-raised to put the infinitive at the end; in this case extraposition of To run is good would result in It is good to run. Extraposition does not apply to gerunds, only infinitives and that-clauses; gerunds are just fine as subjects. – John Lawler Sep 04 '15 at 22:10
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    It might just be me but using the to+infinitive sounds more poetic than the gerund as a subject, which sounds prosier. There is no difference in meaning. – Tragicomic Sep 05 '15 at 03:09

1 Answers1

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The infinitive and the gerund do not mean the same thing. (Source), (Source), (Source) They are not interchangeable because there is a semantic difference between them.

Contrary to popular opinion, the infinitive, unlike the gerund, has a tense aspect:

Infinitives have a tense operator which fixes the understood time frame of the complement clause relative to the tense of the matrix [main verb] This tense conveyed by the infinitive is that of a possible future, or something hypothetical or unrealized. [Stowell, 1982, p. 562] http://www.jstor.org/stable/4178293.

Although not inflected, the idea of futurity is built into the infinitive, irrespective of how it's used.

Infinitives as adjectives:

    something to do.
    a place to go.
    things to come.

In these noun phrases the infinitive adjective expresses the idea of the future, of things yet to happen. Notice that saying "things to come in the future" is redundant because the infinitive "to come" already carries the idea of futurity.

The infinitive as an adverb of purpose/reason/result:

    To pass this test, you need a grade of 60% or more
    He came over to help out.
    To lose weight, you need to work out consistently

The infinitive always expresses the idea of an unrealized possibility that is to happen in the future relative to the tense of the main verb.

So when using the infinitive as an abstract noun and choosing between it and the gerund, the difference is that the infinitive is meant to express unrealized possibilities while the gerund expresses the action in a general sense with no tense aspect or as an action that was already completed.

The infinitive as object/complement:

    I want to learn
    I tried to leave
    They asked me to stay

Notice that the infinitive is an unrealized action, a possibility that may happen after the time indicated by the tense of the main verb.

The gerund as object/complement:

    I like running
    My first love is swimming
    I gave scuba-diving a try

The gerund makes a generalized statement about the action, with no sense of time.

Sometimes the meaning changes depending on which you use:

    (a) Bob remembered to bring the wine.
    (b) Bob remembered bringing the wine

This example illustrates the difference between the infinitive and the gerund. The two sentences do not mean the same thing. In a, bob remembered that he had to bring the wine. The infinitive "to bring" was unrealized at the time he remembered. In b, the gerund "bringing" was completed in the past, which is equivalent to saying he remembered that he brought the wine.

The gerund or infinitive as subject

    Running is good.
    Grammar is fun.

These are general statements about the action. The gerund is preferred as the subject in the vast majority of cases.

The infinitive can be the subject but only when it expresses unrealized actions or actions to happen in the future:

    "To be or not to be?".

Here "to be" is in question. It has not been realized.

    “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” –Audrey Hepburn

In this example, the infinitive subject "To plant a garden" agrees with the complement "to believe in tomorrow", both actions to happen in the future. The sentence is stating that the prospect of planting a garden is equivalent to believing/hoping for things to happen in the future.

So to answer the questioner, the statement "To run is good." is not the right choice, and sounds bad. When making a general statement about the action you use the gerund "Running is good".

William
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    What evidence do you have to suggest that to run is good is incorrect? If it is incorrect, how do you explain the song title To Know Him Is to Love Him? – Anonym Sep 04 '15 at 23:30
  • Pop songs aren't usually examples of standard English usage. – William Sep 05 '15 at 00:25
  • @Anonym This answer is wrong for multiple reasons, not just the one you mentioned, although you’re certainly right that infinitives make fine subjects and are by no means whatsoever “wrong”, let alone “sound bad”. *“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”* –Audrey Hepburn Beyond that the notion that an infinitive has a time sense connected to it is also incorrect, since both -ing versions and infinitives are untensed forms, whether it’s a to-infinitive or a bare one. Neither has time built into it—although the present active participle is different from the past passive one. – tchrist Sep 05 '15 at 01:05
  • @tchrist The infinitve does have a time sense, which is not the same as "tense". It means things to be done or that have not been realized. That's what distinguishes it from the gerund. – William Sep 05 '15 at 01:19
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    The word hear in “I did not hear” is very most certainly in the infinitive. – tchrist Sep 05 '15 at 01:43
  • @tchrist Definitely not. In the sentence " I did not hear ": The subject is I, the verb is "did hear", and the adverb is not. There is no infinitive in that. – William Sep 05 '15 at 01:46
  • @Anonym I edited the post to add a source – William Sep 05 '15 at 01:47
  • Perhaps you do not understand how these things work. In I will hear and I did hear, the word hear is of course in the untensed infinitive. There can be no other morphological possibility. If it were in the past, it would be heard. Similarly in I will be or I must be or I made it be, the word be is the untensed infinitive. No other morphology is admissible. Tensed versions include am, art, is, are, was, wert, were — and it is none of these. Be is always an untensed infinitive. Hear in these cases is one as well. – tchrist Sep 05 '15 at 01:48
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    Kindly stop changing the subject. You are confusing compound verbs with morphology. The *morphological inflection* of hear and be in things like should be and should hear and let it be and it make you hear and help you hear is clearly the infinitive in each and every case. What you are calling auxiliaries are immaterial to the matter. A bare infinitive is every bit as much of an infinitive as a to-infinitive is. – tchrist Sep 05 '15 at 02:01
  • No sir, I'm sorry but that's wrong. Things wouldn’t am*** right that way. There's your first person singular for ya: notice how ungrammatical that is when we do it your way? Please. You cannot pretend that be is a first person singular: it is an untensed infinitive. Everybody knows this. – tchrist Sep 05 '15 at 02:27
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    @William: Of course hear is the bare infinitive. Further, the to+infinitive does not carry a time sense. For example, in I tried to write, the verb try takes the tense and to write carries no time sense by itself. – Tragicomic Sep 05 '15 at 03:02
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    @William: Further, in To run is good, the tense is taken by the be verb. To run does not carry a time sense. – Tragicomic Sep 05 '15 at 03:05
  • @Tragicomic "Time sense" is not the same as tense. The infinitive is a noun, not a verb at all, that describes an unrealized action, a thing that has not been done, or a thing that is to be done in the future. In the sentence "I want to run". The verb want is in the present tense. The object "to run" is something that has not happened, a thing that is wished to happen in the future. Read the source I gave for more explanation. – William Sep 05 '15 at 03:12
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    An infinitive is externally a noun (can function like a noun, as in it can be an object or subject), but internally it is a verb (it can have typical verbal arguments internally, like adverbs or objects). Infinitives normally are not tensed, but they can have an aspect, which I think is what William means. Incidentally, all of this applies to gerunds too, in general. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Sep 05 '15 at 03:30
  • If you wish to learn why we disagree with your analysis, please read this for details of why the complement of a modal and of various auxiliary and other verbs is *an infinitive not a tensed form* in “the first person singular active voice present indicative” as you purport. To understand why we call to hear and to be *verbs acting as noun phrases* rather than nouns, see here. A noun phrase can be a subject or an object, but it’s not a noun. – tchrist Sep 05 '15 at 05:08
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    @William: To+infinitive need not necessarily be used only in sentences that speak of the present or the future. In I managed to write him a letter, as you can see, we are speaking of the past. – Tragicomic Sep 05 '15 at 06:43
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    @William No, sorry. The issue here is that you clearly have absolutely no idea what an infinitive is or how morphology works. This answer, and everything you've written in every comment here is *completely and utterly wrong*. Please educate yourself on the fundamentals of both before attempting to ‘correct’ others who are better informed than you. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 05 '15 at 12:05
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    Importantly, the source you've linked to is specifically talking about how infinitives and gerunds differ when used as complements of other verbs. In that context, it is true that the infinitive (sometimes) carries what you call a time sense that is essentially unrealised. But that is not an inherent trait of the infinitive itself; it's a property of the complement construction that is assigned to the infinitive in that construction. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 05 '15 at 12:19
  • @Tragicomic The verb can be in any tense. The discussion is about the meaning of the infinitive. In "I wanted to go". The verb wanted is in the past, but the infinitive object "to go" expresses an unrealized possibility, a thing you wanted to do in the past that had not been realized. – William Sep 05 '15 at 12:29
  • @Janus Bahs Jacquet The infinitive carries the idea of futurity with it, irrespective of how it's used. Even when it's used as an adjective (Something to do, Things to come, People to see) it expresses the future, a thing that has not happened yet. You don't have to take my word for it though, read this academic source: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4178293, for deeper explanation. – William Sep 05 '15 at 23:42
  • @Tragicomic "in I tried to write, the verb try takes the tense and to write carries no time sense by itself". In that sentence 'to write' is an unrealized possibility that may happen after the subject tried it. The infinitive happens in the future relative to the tense of the verb. – William Sep 06 '15 at 07:03
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    I still disagree that the notion of unrealisedness is built into the infinitive itself (there is nothing unrealised in “I managed to do it”, “He happened to be there”, or “It’s always fun to dance” for instance—the infinitive is explicitly realised simultaneously with the matrix in all three cases), but at least this answer does not now claim that “To run is good” is ungrammatical, so I’ve reversed my downvote (even though I also still disagree that it sounds bad: it sounds perfectly fine, even as a general statement). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 06 '15 at 08:10