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西门大官人
Is "to breakfast" an infinitive or just a preposition plus a noun in the following?
She thanked him for saving them and sat down to breakfast.
Sep 8, 2010 6:30 AM
Answers · 8
1
Pretty sure there is no instance where breakfast can be used as a verb. So to answer your question, it's a prepositional phrase. I guess technically it's grammatically correct, but usually you would say "to eat breakfast" or "for breakfast" instead.
September 8, 2010
1
From a dictionary:
breakfast:
noun
1. the first meal of the day; morning meal: A hearty breakfast was served at 7 a.m.
2. the food eaten at the first meal of the day: a breakfast of bacon and eggs.
verb (used without object)
3. to eat breakfast: He breakfasted on bacon and eggs.
verb (used with object)
4. to supply (someone) with breakfast: We breakfasted the author in the finest restaurant.
James' answer seems to be the most accurate.
In Canada and the US we use breakfast as a noun - maybe 99% of the time (definition #1 and 2)
It is very unusual for someone to use breakfast as a verb, although it's not incorrect (definition #3 and 4).
"and sat down to breakfast" means "and sat down to eat the breakfast".
"to breakfast" would usually be interpretted as a preposition + noun, however, it could also be considered to be the infinitive form of the verb breakfast (i.e., to breakfast).
September 8, 2010
To break-fast, it can be used as a verb ,it means you haven't eating for sometime and it's time to break the fasting . (It's time to break-fast ,i have been fasting for 10 hours.)
now of course breakfast is a noun .( I have breakfast a 7:00 o'clock in the morning.)
September 8, 2010
In your example, it could be either a prep+ noun or a verb, but this is probably a prep + noun.
Generally, "breakfast" is used as a noun, but it does depend on the context. For example:
"Let's go to breakfast at 10 o'clock" (prep + noun)
"Let's breakfast at 10 o'clock" (verb)
September 8, 2010
Here to breakfast is a verb other than a noun.
September 8, 2010
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西门大官人
Language Skills
Chinese (Mandarin), English
Learning Language
English
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