英文文法：两句语法分析：Devoting/Devoted
Source: Sina Reader
(answered by: alexwlin; edited by: Adam Lam)

Question:
请教Alex先生：以下正确的语法应该是什么？

alexcwlin comments:
1. (Devoting？ / Devoted？) to his research, he has no time to spend a weekend with his family.
2. (Devoting？ / Devoted？) herself to practcing for ten years, she became one of the world's best long-distance swimmers.

1.      “Devoting/Devoted to his research, he has no time to spend a weekend with his family”.

I would rewrite the sentence this way:

“Being (devoted/dedicated) to his research, he has no time to spend weekends with his family.”

The first part “Being devoted to his research” is a Present Continuous Participle Adjective Phrase modifying the Subject “he”. Present Continuous Tense points to “general truth” which is happening presently.

His time commitments to his research should impede his time spent with his family for many weekends and not just “a” weekend. Therefore, the plural form of “weekends” is used.

A question is whether you can say “Devoting to his research” for the first part? Grammatically there is nothing wrong saying it this way, but I would use this format for a cause-and-effect situation. An example is “Devoting to his research, he wins accolades from his peers”.

2.      “Devoting/Devoted) herself to practicing for ten years, she became one of the world's best long-distance swimmers.”

I would rewrite this sentence this way:

“Having devoted herself to practicing for ten years, she became one of the world’s best long-distance swimmers in the last Olympics”.

The first part “Having devoted herself to practicing for ten years” is a Past Perfect Continuous Participle Adjective Phrase modifying the Subject “he”. Past Perfect Continuous Tense points to something that happened for a continuous period in the past.

The phrase “she became” is Simple Past Tense.

Remember in my notes that when Past Tense is used, some reference to specific time must be included. As such, the duration “for ten years” was used in Past Perfect Continuous Participle Adjective Phrase”, and “in the last Olympics” is used in the Simple Past Tense part.