would be bringing

GG

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Sep 7, 2012, 8:32:02 AM9/7/12

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[
The Texas history teachers' bulletin
University of Texas. Dept. of History - 1915

This she thought would be bringing Austria before a court of
arbitration. Sir Edward Grey replied that the conference would in no
sense be a court, but merely an informal
]

"would be bringing": any difference from "would bring"?

Making it perhaps more immediate?

Thanks.

JOF

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Sep 7, 2012, 11:39:02 AM9/7/12

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"This ... would bring" would be a prediction of what would happen as
a consequence of "this".
Either "This ... would be bringing" or "This ... would be to bring"
actually equate "this" to the "bringing of Austria before a court of
arbitration".

--
John

GG

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Sep 7, 2012, 3:57:31 PM9/7/12

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Interesting take.

Thanks.

micky

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Sep 7, 2012, 9:01:02 PM9/7/12

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On Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:32:02 -0400, GG <not_here@no_where.com> wrote:

>[

>The Texas history teachers' bulletin
>University of Texas. Dept. of History - 1915
>
>This she thought would be bringing Austria before a court of
>arbitration. Sir Edward Grey replied that the conference would in no
>sense be a court, but merely an informal
>]
>
>"would be bringing": any difference from "would bring"?

Not much, if any..

>
>Making it perhaps more immediate?

I don't think so. Nor less.

>Thanks.

Eric Walker

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Sep 7, 2012, 10:07:27 PM9/7/12

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This is a facet of verb use called "aspect", which receives much less
attention than such things as tense and number.

The chief flavors of aspect are "terminate" and "progressive" (there is
also a "point" aspect). As the names suggest, the terminate aspect
depicts the action in question as completed, while the progressive
depicts it as ongoing:

Last Saturday, I worked in the garden. [terminate]

Last Saturday, I was working in the garden [progressive]

Note that the aspect applies at the time indicated by the tense, not the
time the sentence is uttered. The evolution of the progressive form has
tended to make the terminate form the normal one for stating general or
universal truths ("I get up early").

The progressive form used in the example implies a process still under
way; the suggested terminate alternative requires an implication of
futurity rather than attention to the present. Either is "correct", but
they convey subtly different senses.

--
Cordially,
Eric Walker

Jerry Friedman

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Sep 7, 2012, 11:05:15 PM9/7/12

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I understand this "bringing" as a gerund, if that's what you want to
call it, not as progressive or continuous or whatever you want to call
it. I think the sentence means "This... would constitute [an act of]

bringing Austria before a court of arbitration."

--
Jerry Friedman

Jerry Friedman

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Sep 7, 2012, 11:12:19 PM9/7/12

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On Sep 7, 6:32 am, GG <not_here@no_where.com> wrote:
> [

> The Texas history teachers' bulletin
> University of Texas. Dept. of History - 1915
>
> This she thought would be bringing Austria before a court of
> arbitration. Sir Edward Grey replied that the conference would in no
> sense be a court, but merely an informal
> ]

...

Cross-thread alert: This "she" is Germany.

--
Jerry Friedman

James Hogg

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Sep 8, 2012, 2:46:14 AM9/8/12

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Almost certainly right. "This would amount to bringing Austria before a
court of arbitration."

--
James

GG

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Sep 8, 2012, 7:59:06 AM9/8/12

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Well, isn't:
"would be bringing Austria"
in the future than in present?

Perhaps a closer future?

Thanks, everyone.

GG

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Sep 8, 2012, 8:07:22 AM9/8/12

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Thanks.

How about:
[
She wasn’t the spinster he’d thought her father would be bringing to
London.
]

This doesn't seem a gerund to me.
Is it more immediate in time than "would bring"?