I. Analyze the modal meanings actualized by the infinitive and the infinitival complexes (possibility, necessity, desire, expression of an actual fact):

a)

1. There is a Mr. Anthony Rizzoli here to see you (Sheldon).

2. I have a regiment of guards to do my bidding (Haggard).

3. I’ll send a man to come with you (Lawrence).

4. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks (Haggard).

5. There is nothing in that picture to indicate that she was soon to be one of the most famous persons in France (Christie)

6. It was a sound to remember (Lawrence).

b)

1. There were several benches in advantageous places to catch the sun... (Christie)

2. "Why don't you get married?" she said. "Get some nice capable woman to look after you." (Christie)

3. It occurred to Tommy at this moment with some force that that would certainly be the line to take with Aunt Ada, and indeed always had been (Christie).

4. With the choice of getting well or having brimstone and treacle to drink, you chose getting well every time (Christie).

5. "I suppose there must be some people who are slightly batty here, as well as normal elderly relatives with nothing but age to trouble them." (Christie)

6. "Pity she hadn't got a fortune to leave you," said Tuppence (Christie).

c)

1. I've got everything laid out tidily for you to look through (Christie).

2. There's really very little to tell (Christie).

3. Three sons were too much to burden yourself with (Christie).

4. "There's nothing to find out in this place - so forget about Mrs. Blenkinsop." (Christie)

5. She must have been a tartar to look after, though (Christie).

6. But it's not the police she wants, it's a doctor to be called - she's that crazy about doctors (Christie).

II. Rephrase the sentences so as to use a gerund as an object:

1. I insist on it that you should give up this job immediately.

2. They were surprised when they didn't find any one at home.

3. He went on speaking and was not listening to any objections.

4. When the boy was found he didn't show any signs of being alive.

5. Do you admit that you have made a mistake by divorcing her?

6. They suspect that he has been bribed.

III. Choose infinitive or gerund and give your reasons:

1. As some water had got in, the engine of the boat couldn't but.... working (to stop).

2. I'm afraid our camera wants… (to repair).

3. This is not the way… children (to treat).

4. I soon regretted… the doctor's recommendations (not to follow).

5. I regret…that I can't come to your wedding (to say).

6. Did they teach you… at school (to dance)?

7. Who has taught you… so well (to dance)?

8. She demanded… the whole truth (to tell).

9. On her way home she stopped… with her neighbour (to talk).

10. Remember… the gas-stove before leaving the flat (to turn off).

IV. Point out Participle I, gerund or verbal noun:

a)

1. Curtis Hartman came near dying from the effects of that night of waiting in the church... (Anderson)

2. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication (O.Henry).

3. The stewardess announced that they were going to make an emergency landing. All but the child saw in their minds the spreading wings of the Angel of Death. The pilot could be heard singing faintly... (Cheever)

4. Soapy, having decided to go to the Island, at once set about accomplishing his desire. There were many easy ways of doing this (O.Henry).

b)

1. The loud groaning of the hydraulic valves swallowed up the pilot's song, and there was a shrieking high in the air, like automobile brakes, and the plane hit flat on its belly in a cornfield and shook them so violently that an old man up forward howled, "Me kidneys! Me kidneys!" The stewardess flung open the door, and someone opened an emergency door at the back, letting in the sweet noise of their continuing mortality - the idle splash and smell of a heavy rain (Cheever).

2. "At that time me and Andy was doing a square, legitimate business of selling walking canes. If you unscrewed the head of one and turned it up to your mouth a half pint of good rye whiskey would go trickling down your throat to reward you for your act of intelligence." (O.Henry)

3. Now the shadow of the town fell over the valley earlier, and she remembered herself the beginnings of winter - the sudden hoarfrost lying on the grapes and wild flowers, and the contadini coming in at dark on their asini, loaned down with roots and other scraps of wood, for wood was hard to find in that country and one would ride ten kilometri for a bundle of green olive cuttings, and she could remember the cold in her bones and see the asini against the yellow light of evening and hear the lonely noise of stones falling down the steep path, falling away from their hoofs (Cheever).

4. Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face towards the window. She stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep (O.Henry).

c)

1. "Can't you let a man die as comfortably as he can without calling him names? What's the use of slanging me?" "You're not going to die." "Don't be silly. I'm dying now. Ask those bastards." (Hemingway)

2. "There was a girl standing there - an imported girl with fixings on -philandering with a croquet maul and amusing herself by watching my style of encouraging the fruit canning industry." (O.Henry)

3. At the first cocktail, taken at the bar, there were many slight spillings from many trembling hands, but later, with the champagne, there was a rising tide of laughter and occasional bursts of song (Fitzgerald).

4. Cutting the last of the roses in her garden, Julia heard old Mr. Nixon shouting at the squirrels in his bird-feeding station (Cheever).

d)

1. Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings (O.Henry).

2. He certainly could not remember ever having felt arrogant or ever having been pleased that he had slighted or offended anyone. He had never felt that plain work, for very little money, was beneath him, but he had always been eager to get back to his writing. Every now and then when the going was tough he had even grown fearful that he might never break through, and that he might find himself working steadily at a common job, solely because he had to provide for his family (Saroyan).

3. He floundered in the water. It went into his nose and started a raw stinging; it blinded him; it lingered afterward in his ears, rattling back and forth like pebbles for hours. The sun discovered him, too, peeling long strips of parchment from his shoulders, blistering his back so that he lay in a feverish agony for several nights (Fitzgerald).

4. And third, if he proved difficult in any way, as she knew he might, or if he went right on leering at every girl he happened to see, who was to stop her from getting a divorce and being none the worse for having been for a while Mrs. Andre Salamat? (Saroyan)