Saturday, November 11, 2017

Responsibility, the Gerund, and the Perfect Aspect

In the process of answering this question on ELL, I hit upon something I can't explain.



The sentence in question is:




Who is responsible for leaving the window open?





I think anyone hearing that sentence would think:




  1. A window was opened at some point in the past

  2. Someone had an opportunity and/or obligation to close the window

  3. That person is at fault and will be held accountable for their negligence once identified




I believe the -ing form of “leaving” forms a gerund clause used as the subject, and I came to wonder if it wouldn't be “more correct” (proscriptively, say) to use the perfect aspect:




Who is responsible for having left the window open?




I'm not sure if it matters, but just to be clear:




  1. The speaker is inquiring about a present state of culpability


  2. The events in question are entirely in the past (the window is closed)



I'm forced to ask this as one question because I don't know which part of it is responsible(!) for shaping how the other parts should be. I am very open to reforming the question if someone with an idea of how to make this more focused and useful suggests a change that is supported by others.

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