Park sang joon Posted 10 years ago
Grammar
A exclamatory phrase of a participle phrase
This novel is set in a Chinese village before World War One.
The protagonist lives with his wife, baby, and father, his wife was a maid with very rich family.
It is the second day of the New Year, He is on the way home from his wife's ex-master's place with his wife, with having the son in his arms after her brief visit.
Wang Lung laughed aloud and he held the child tenderly against him. How well he had done?how well he had done! And then as he exulted he was smitten with fear. What foolish thing was he doing, walking like this under an open sky, with a beautiful man child for any evil spirit passing by chance through the air to see!
<The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck>
I'd like to know if I replace the underlined phrase with to-infinitive without the meaning change.
Thank you in advance for your help.
The protagonist lives with his wife, baby, and father, his wife was a maid with very rich family.
It is the second day of the New Year, He is on the way home from his wife's ex-master's place with his wife, with having the son in his arms after her brief visit.
Wang Lung laughed aloud and he held the child tenderly against him. How well he had done?how well he had done! And then as he exulted he was smitten with fear. What foolish thing was he doing, walking like this under an open sky, with a beautiful man child for any evil spirit passing by chance through the air to see!
<The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck>
I'd like to know if I replace the underlined phrase with to-infinitive without the meaning change.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Top answer
Your basic idea is reasonable, but in this case "walking" has a better parallelism with "doing".
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Your basic idea is reasonable, but in this case "walking" has a better parallelism with "doing".
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park sang joonI'd like to know if I can replace the underlined phrase with a to-infinitiveThat would bewithout the meaning change.a change in meaning.
What foolish thing was he doing, to walk like this under an open sky, with ..
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