英文grammar urgent!

1. To help 之後可以接infinitive或bare infinitive，視乎你的喜好。

2. 用to recover也沒錯，不過句子的意思有點兒不同。

It took the region a long time to recover.
Recover在句中是個動詞，句子的重點是復原的過程（動作）。
原句It took the region a long time recovering中的recovering是個名詞，重點是復原的事態（事情）。

這個跟I like to listen to music / I like listening to music 的分別一樣。

3. 單看"The"一字，你可能覺得句子要寫成the worst才對，因為接the之後要用superlative form (-est)。

可是，句子所提及的是"one of the"（即「其中之一」）。試看看這個例子。學校內最高的同學A是1.8m，另外還有五個1.78m高的同學C-G。你該寫:"A" is one of the tallest students嗎？不可以，因為最高的那個只有一個。若是同學B也是1.8m，那麼A和B都是校內最高的同學，那時你便可以寫A is one of the tallest students.

同樣地，雖然C不是最高的，但他郤是校內較高的同學了。所以，你可以說： C is one of the taller students。句中的"taller students"是指校內較高的同學，不可以因為前面有個the字而要寫成為tallest，因為C的確不是校內最高的同學。

返回原句，可否用one of the worst environmental disasters就要看environmental disasters的定意。若果它是指總括的自然環境災害，那麼the worst只可以有一個，那樣one of the worst就不太正確。若是它指不同類型的災害（如火災、風災、地震等），那麼one of the worst也可以成立，因為是每個種類之最的其中一個。同樣地，one of the worse environmental disasters也沒錯。

記得，文法在許多時候都沒有絕對的對或錯，是對是錯是在乎於你想表達的意思符不符合文法。

我推薦您一個非常不錯的英語學習網站，里面有很多非常不錯的學習資源：

http://www.hkenglishstudy.info

希望可以幫到你!

1. pepole came from all over the world to help the Alaskans clean the oil.
Why i cannot use to clean?

Answer: "to clean" is not used becuase using one "to infinitive" to follow another "to infinitive" makes the sentence awkward. In fact, "help" is one of the few verbs that can be followed by either a "bare infinitive" or a "to infinitive". Given a choice, the "bare infinitive" should be used to make the above sentence flow better.

2.it took the region a long time recovering.
Why i can't use to recover

Answer: Actually you can use "to recover", but "recovering" is also grammatically correct. I suspect in this case the author meant to emphasize that the "recovery" was never completed, so in that sense using "recovering" conveyed that meaning, whereas using "to recover" might indicate a full recovery.

3.it was one of the worse environmental disasters
Why i can't use worst?

Answer:
Yes, you can use either "worse" or "worst", depending on the intention of the sentence. If the author regarded the "oil spill" as among the "worst" environmental disasters, then "worst" would have been used. However, if the author regarded it among the "worse", but not the "worst" of all the environmental disasters, then "worse" would be used.

In my opion, there may be a good reason for the author to take that position, as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, and the use of chemical weapon by the US in Vietnam were perhaps far more damaging than the oil spill.


2011-01-02 00:47:39 補充：
My answer was posted around the same time as the one by 003 (ma). They were wuite similar, but I prefer 003's answer on point 2. I agree that the use of "recovering" emphasizes the process itself, rather than the "continuing" factor. Therefore, 003 (ma)'s answer is better.

1. Because 'help' is a bare infinitive.
2. In my opinion, 'to recover' is even better than 'recovering' in this case.
3. In fact, 'worst' is the only answer. 'worse' is totally unacceptable.

People came from all over the world to help the Alaskans clean the oil. (對)
People came from all over the world to help the Alaskans to clean the oil. (對)

It took the region a long time to recover. (對)
It took the region a long time recovering. (錯)

It was one of the worst environmental disasters. (對)
It was one of the worse environmental disasters. (錯)

For questions 1 & 2, no explanation can be given because you have to recite the rules for which verb is followed by to-infinitive, gerund or bare infinitive.

For question 3, it is the comparative form of 'bad'.
The weather is bad.
Today's weather is worse than yesterday's weather.
Today's weather is the worst in this week.