Representing thinking, perceiving, liking and desiring

Using verb patterns to represent likes and dislikes

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Ellipsis with attitude verbs

Ellipsis refers to the omission of words from a sentence. With ellipsis, it is usually clear from the context which word or words have been left out:

What? Confine myself in a particular category? I'd hate to [^]!
(Bank of English)

I'd hate to [confine myself in any particular category]!

The verb part of the to-infinitive can be omitted after some attitude verbs in cases where the activity or situation has already been mentioned. However, there are a number of restrictions, in that ellipsis with these verbs tends to occur in negative structures. For example, it is less likely for someone to say I like to [^], yet the negative is possible I don't like to [^]. Note that only a small number of attitude verbs, eg cannot bear, not care, not like, prefer , typically have the verb part of the to-infinitive omitted .

For further information about ellipsis in general, see Developing cohesion: Ellipsis.

Introduction
Participants associated with attitude verbs
Grammatical patterns associated with the phenomenon
Verb followed by a noun form
Verb followed by the -ing group
Verb followed by the to-infinitive
Verb followed by an object and the -ing form
Verb followed by an object and the to-infinitive
Verb followed by a that clause
Ellipsis with attitude verbs
Present simple v present continuous tense
A note on the order of participants