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"to complete" vs "to have completed"



 
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ESL Forums | English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
The use and position of 'Left'. | in vs on (e.g. "in the team" vs "on the team")
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"to complete" vs "to have completed" #1 (permalink) Thu Jan 31, 2008 15:07 pm   "to complete" vs "to have completed"
 

Hello,

The builders undertook to ..................... the whole job by the end of the week.

a) to complete
b) to have completed

I do agree that answer "a" is correct; all the same, what about answer "b".

Would it be a mistake if I chose it?

p.s. no context provided, sorry :(
Audiolaik
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"to complete" vs "to have completed" #2 (permalink) Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:46 am   "to complete" vs "to have completed"
 

.
I don't think B works-- at the time they undertook the job, the completion was clearly in the future.
.
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"to complete" vs "to have completed" #3 (permalink) Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:06 pm   "to complete" vs "to have completed"
 

What about the following:

...The builders undertook that they would have completed.....

Would it be correct?

Thanks!
Audiolaik
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"to complete" vs "to have completed" #4 (permalink) Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:39 pm   "to complete" vs "to have completed"
 

audiolaik wrote:
What about the following:

...The builders undertook that they would have completed.....

Would it be correct?

Thanks!

I think it right.
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"to complete" vs "to have completed" #5 (permalink) Fri Feb 01, 2008 13:54 pm   "to complete" vs "to have completed"
 

.
Even worse, in my estimation! Undertook that they would complete is OK.
.
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"to complete" vs "to have completed" #6 (permalink) Fri Feb 01, 2008 15:05 pm   "to complete" vs "to have completed"
 

audiolaik wrote:
What about the following:

...The builders undertook that they would have completed.....
I find that sentence to be awkward at best.

Here is a little feedback from the British National Corpus about just how uncommon the phrase "undertook that they would" is:
If you click here, you'll notice that there are no hits at all in the BNC

For anyone who might be interested, there has been additional discussion on this topic in another forum.
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