Há limite para verbos no gerúndio?

Hey guys!

Existe alguma regra que impõe limites para o número de verbos no gerúndio em sequência?
Exemplo: ' I'm starting regretting remembering going fishing.' Esta frase tá errada?

Thanks!

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3 respostas
Ordenar por: Data
Ana Luiza escreveu:Hey guys!

Existe alguma regra que impôe limites para o número de verbos no gerúndio em sequência?
Exemplo: ' I'm starting regretting remembering going fishing.' Esta frase tá errada?

Thanks!
Não, desde que tenha sentido. :P

Eu acho, não digo com certeza pois no português dá para colocar, em sequência, palavras no gerúndio e dar certo.
(mas veja que o nosso gerúndio é o presente continuo deles (e nosso também))

Por exemplo:
"I am going fishing" quer dizer "Eu vou pescar". :P (os dois tem "ing" mas não estão no gerúndio)


Ah, não confundir "gerúndio" com o "gerund" deles. :P
Henry Cunha 3 18 190
Olá Ana Luiza,

What a terrific question! Very clever!

I´m with João in saying that it´s permissible, so long as it makes sense. I could argue against your proposed utterance both on the basis that there are better options in terms of reader comprehension, as well as that it perhaps conveys two different meanings.

Here´s what I like about it. I don´t know if you intended it, but it has a beautiful poetic rhyming form of three syllabic stresses per line when laid out as follows:

I´m starting
Regretting
Remembering
Going fishing.

Here´s another one for you, with four beats per line:

I´m considering
Contemplating
Diagnosing
You´re maddening!

Obviously you have a good feel for how English works!
Henry Cunha 3 18 190
Reconsidering... (rsrs)

No, Ana Luiza, I don´t think you´d want to build sentences like that. They fail to pass the test of clarity. These participles need to be attached to their auxiliaries in a clearer manner. In this case, in my view, the problem your construction creates is not one of no meaning, but of many possible meanings.

Let´s take just "I´m starting regretting" by itself. Does it mean that you are starting, as in a journey or a trip, at which time you are already beginning to regret some former incident, or are you only mentally starting to regret that incident? For each instance, you might have been better off rewriting as follows:

"I´m starting out regretting..."
"I´m starting to regret..."

And then, are you just regretting remembering, or are you regretting going fishing? There´s room to wonder which one you mean. So different interpretations could lead to different conclusions; for example:

Remembering what happened, I´m beginning to regret going fishing. (OR)
I now regret having any recollection of the fishing trip.

So, in the interest of clarity, I would avoid this type of prose construction. I´d save it for poetry, where you can purposely break some rules.