as if to do something

There's a guy I know that keeps asking me a question and I'm not sure how I should answer. Will any one of you, please, help me out?

The question goes:

1) He looked as if he wanted to do the work by himself.

Is it ok to say like "He looked as if to do the work by himself," when sort of paraphrasing the above?

2) He looked as if he had wanted to do the work by himself.

Is it also possible to go like "He looked as if to have done the work by himself" ?

Incidentally the guy(Japanese) is an English teacher by trade and he says he wants some explanation in grammatical usage as to "as if to infinitive."

But any comment regarding the examples above would be more than welcome. That'd perhaps save my embarrassment.

With best regards, shot

The above don't seem to be logical substitutions.

The only situation I can recall where "as if to" is used to any considerable extent is in "as if to say..." ﾂ・ﾂ・ﾂ・窶堙??堋｢窶堙ｭ窶堙ｱ窶堙寂?堋ｩ窶堙ｨ窶堙? Other than that I can't say that phrase is used all that much.

"He looked as if he wanted to do the work by himself" is just fine, but removing "he wanted" makes it very unnatural, partially because the resulting sentence has two conflicting tenses in it. "He looked like he wanted to do the work [by] himself," or "it seemed like/as if he wanted to do the work on his own" would also be acceptable

If you amend your second example to say "he looked as if he did the work by himself," it'll infer that the work is already done, and he is either proud of his accomplishment, or upset that he has to share his glory. You could also say "it looked/seemed as if he did the work by himself." By changing the subject, it changes the meaning as if the person speaking is not observing the man, but rather, the situation in which he worked, or perhaps the final product itself.

shot said:

1) He looked as if he wanted to do the work by himself.
Is it ok to say like "He looked as if to do the work by himself," when sort of paraphrasing the above?
2) He looked as if he had wanted to do the work by himself.
Is it also possible to go like "He looked as if to have done the work by himself" ?

Click to expand...

1) He looked as if he wanted to do the work by himself = he seemed frustrated while doing a job because people were trying to help him. He didn't want this help so therefore, "he looked as if he wanted to do the work by himself".

He looked as if to do the work by himself...I would interpret this sentence in the following way: he was doing a job, probably by himself, but you're not sure. Someone may have been helping him. However, in my opinion, this sentence has a strange feel to it, which usually means it's gramatically incorrect. It would be odd to hear it in real life.

2) He looked as if he had wanted to do the work by himself: this is more or less the same as He looked as if he wanted to do the work by himself however, because you use "had wanted" the sentence is not joined in any way to the present. The image of him "wanting to do the work" has finished.

He looked as if to have done the work by himself: This is the same grammatical form as the above sentence, however, the thing that has "completely finished" is the "work". All the work has been finished, and when you saw the man it looked like HE was the one that did it all.

Thank you sooo much for your convincing remarks!

I appreciate any one of them.

See you, guys.