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Ziggy
A)"all he could do was stare at the wall" OR, B) "was to stare"? WHY?
A friend and I are disagreeing on the following to sentence structures.
"All he could was stare at the wall" or "All he could do was to stare at the wall".
I say it is the first , I am quite confident that I am correct but you could please help me to explain why?
2014년 11월 9일 오전 8:30
답변 · 5
1
I would say : "All he could do was stare at the wall"
You could also add "to" before stare but it sounds a bit more natural to say the sentence without "to"
You need "do" after "could" in your expression because modals are always used with main verbs, except when answering a question briefly in the affirmative or negative e.g. "Yes I can"
I can't explain why you can say "stare" and "to stare" and why the first sounds more natural. One day I hope I will be able to explain this!
2014년 11월 9일
I explained it in a similar question here:
http://www.italki.com/question/269723
Or, you could search for each phrase in quotation marks.
2014년 11월 9일
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