Cis
What I want you to do is not to... ambiguous Hi everyone 1.What I want you to do is not to play games. I think here " is not to " is ambiguous. It could mean both: "not" can be part of the infinitive. For example "not to play games is what I want you to do" "not" can be part of "to be" .Foe example," to play games is not what I want you to do" Am I right?
Nov 23, 2014 7:58 PM
Answers · 10
2
My first impression upon hearing or reading a sentence like this would be that the "not" would be part of the infinitive - but there are better ways of structuring the sentence grammatically that would avoid this problem. Altogether, this sentence wouldn't sound like natural English in its present state. 1) If you wanted the "not" to be part of the infinitive, it would be better to say "I do not want you to play games" or "I would like for you to not play games" 2) If you wanted the "not" to be part of the verb "to be," you could say "Playing games is not what I want you to do" Hope this makes sense! Good luck :)
November 23, 2014
1
Jon's answer is good. I'd add one more thing. Often, the words,"not play games" go together without any "to". So "not play games" acts like the object of the verb "is". What I want you to do is not play games, so the compound subject "what I want you to do" is ( equal to) "not play games."
November 23, 2014
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