Examples:

a. I suppose we could go to the cinema but I am not really keen.

b. He was supposed to be here at eight and it is nearly nine!

c. I don’t suppose you know where the meeting is taking place, do you?

d. You are supposed to wear the uniform everyday, not to come in your own clothes.

e. Supposing you won the lottery, what would you do with the money?

f. Alice: Oh, you’re still working! I thought you would have finished by now.
Ben: What’s that supposed to mean?

g. George W Bush said he was trying to deal with the supposed threat from Al Qai’ida.

h. Supposedly the rise in interest rates won’t affect our business too much.

Functions:

1. This is what they say but I don’t believe them.

2. It’s a possibility but I’m not sure about it. OR Here’s an idea. What do you think?

3. I am offended by what you just said.

4. Polite question when you are not sure the person knows the answer.

5. Believed by some to be true or real but I’m not convinced.

6. Imagine.

7. It’s an obligation.

8. It’s expected but it hasn’t happened.

If you are struggling, here is the answer:

1.h 2.a 3.f 4.c 5.g 6.e 7.d 8.b

There are some important points to note.

In 3.f, the word supposed is used as part of the whole phrase: ‘What’s that supposed to mean.’ You can’t substitute others words.

In 4.c, the question is made more polite by putting the negative ‘don’t’ in front of ‘suppose’. In fact, using ‘suppose’ without the negative in this sentence can come across as quite snide or agressive.

‘I suppose you don’t know where the meeting is taking place.’

This sentence would often carry stress on ‘you’ and the implication is that you think he person does know but won’t tell you.

2.a can be used to make a suggestion you want to make but which you fear may be unpopular. It allows the other person to refuse the suggestion without you losing face for making it.

Using ‘suppose’ correctly can really enhance your English but you need to be sure it is the correct use or you could insult somebody quite badly.

At the end of my first blog on Gerunds and Infinitives, I promised to write another on the use of gerunds and infinitives with verbs of perception and modal verbs. So here goes.

Verbs of perception:

The main difficult here stems from the fact that you can have these verbs followed by either a gerund or what looks like an infinitive.

I saw her go into the shop.

I saw her going into the shop.

Is there a difference in meaning? Well, yes, there is a difference. In the first sentence, you saw the completed action. She entered the shop and you saw the whole thing. In the second sentence, you saw a part of the action; the part where she was going into the shop. It is not as clear-cut that she actually finished up in the shop as it is in the first sentence.

It is easier to see the difference in this example:

I saw him build a model of the Empire State Building out of Lego.

I saw him building a model of the Empire State building out of Lego.

Such a process would take time. In the first sentence, you saw the whole process or you saw the completion of the process. In the second, you saw only a part of the process. He may have finished the model; he may not.

The same goes for ‘hear’.

I heard her talk about her marriage.
I heard her talking about her marriage.

In the second sentence, you heard part of what she has to say on the subject of her marriage; in the first, you heard a completed discourse on the subject. Indeed, in the first sentence, the word talk could be either a verb or a noun, which underlines the fact that what is heard is a finite thing.

There remains the question of whether or not a verb of perception can be followed by an infinitive. In my opinion, it cannot as you cannot perceive a potentiality. That is why the verbs do not have a ‘to’ in front of them. The distinction is between whether you perceived all or part of the event. The fact that it seems to be a question of gerunds and infinitives is a red herring.

Modal Verbs:

As you all know, modal verbs do not behave like other verbs and that is true when it comes to their use with gerunds and infinitives as well. The easiest way to think about them is to see them as ‘superusers’: when you have a modal verb, everything that comes after them is subject to their rules. Now, since modality features on the Potential side of things, they are not going to be followed by gerunds (see my earlier blog on the subject for a discussion of ‘need + gerund’) but because they are different from normal verbs, they are not followed by a real infinitive either. Obviously, if you are using ‘have to’ or ‘ought to’, it looks like there is an infinitive but in fact the ‘to’ is part of the modal verb, not part of the verb that follows. Once you accept this, it is easy to use modal verbs with infinitives. It even helps with the meaning of the modals themselves if you remember that they are always ‘potential’.

The first thing to stress is that English speakers do not find this difficult.  This may seem obvious, but there are areas of English grammar that native speakers have trouble with.  The third conditional springs to mind. So, I decided I needed to look at the nature of gerunds and infinitives and to define what made them different from each other.

Potentiality versus actuality

This is the essence of the difference.  Gerunds are used for things which ‘are’ or ‘were’ (actuality) and infinitives are used for things which may be (potential) but are not ‘actual’ at the moment of speaking. That is why the verb ‘want’ is followed by an infinitive and ‘finish’ by a gerund.  You finish something that you have started, so it is ‘actual’ you want to do something before you do it, so it is potential at the moment of speaking.

Some verbs can be followed by either a gerund or an infinitive. You might say: ‘I need to have a haircut’ or ‘My hair needs cutting’.  In the first instance, you are talking about something you need to do in the future (potential); in the second you are talking about the situation of your hair at the moment of speaking (actual).

In general, verbs talking about things which are, or are not, to come take the infinitive: expect, arrange, enable, forbid, encourage, persuade, force, order, remind, wish, etc.  Verbs which are about things in progress or finished take the gerund: deny, avoid, resent, enjoy, resist, mention, admit, continue, fancy, etc.

Of course, I hear you shout, there are also verbs which look like they should go into one category but go in the other.  ‘Suggest’ is a case in point.  We use the gerund with ‘suggest’, although it appears to be talking about the future. In fact, there are two ways to use the verb.  You can say: ‘I suggest you go to the doctor’ where the meaning is closer to that of an infinitive (although technically, this is not an infinitive) and there is a certain amount of distance implied.  Equally, you can say: ‘I suggest going to the cinema tonight’ where the action is clearly in the future but the use of the gerund makes the activity more ‘real’.  This is because the use of ‘suggest’ makes the thing suggested as real as possible and that can only happen if you use the gerund. The suggestion is made at the moment of speaking and it is actual at that point.

There are other verbs where the use of the gerund or the infinitive can change the meaning.  Two of the most commonly used are ‘remember’ and ‘forget’.  If you remember to do something, the action you do is potential at the moment of speaking; if you remember doing something, the action you remember is obviously in the past. Similarly, if you forget to do something, the action remains potential but it is never actually done; if you forget doing/having done something, the assumption is that the action took place but you cannot remember it.

Next week, I will look at verbs of perception and the use of gerunds and infinitives (or rather, things that look like infinitives but act differently) with modal verbs.