LifeDeath wrote:A month ago in my English lesson I needed to put athe proper form of a word in athe sentence "I would hate ___ there". The word was "live" and the form that I chose was "living". The teacher said it was incorrect and that we had to say "to" after "would hate". And I absolutely agree with her, even begginners know such expressions as "would like to do" or "would hate to do". But then I was thinking about what made me choose that strange option. And that's what my question is about.
What do you think, is it at least theoretically possible to say it in that way? Yes, "would hate to do something" is a stableset expression in English. But what if we consider it not as an expression, but as the verb "would" plus the rest of a sentence? I guess that's what I unconsciously did when completing that sentence. I googled "would hate" with different gerunds and found hundreds thousand of examples. Maybe therecan be any's a specific context, where it would work? As I keep reminding myself, a language is not a math, it's usually flexible, depending on a person's way of thinking, register, emotions, mood, etc. So, is it possible in theory? I thought about it, and I gotcame to the conclusion, that when you say "to V", it is just like a common expression. "I'd hate to live there", it is like you picture it as a period, a long one I guess. Like from now, until forever (if one could live forever). And when you say "I'd hate living there" you just put the emphasis on a process of living, no matter how long it will take. Could be rephrased "Living there - that's what I would surely hate".
I tried to create an example, and I guess it would work as a part of a conditionals.
"I hate living there".
"I did hate living there" (I hated living there).
"I will hate living there".
"I would hate living there".
"If we get ourselves to that house, I will hate living there".
"If we got ourselves to that house, I would hate living there".
"If we had got ourselves to that house, I would have hated living there".
So what is your opinion on that matter? What do you think?
It's more than a "theoretical" possibility; all those sentences are idiomatic. Some verbal constructions can only take an infinitive or a gerund, others allow either. Here either is possible. When the subclause is fronted, the gerund sounds more colloquial, i.e. "To live there is something I would hate" sounds very stilted compared with "Living there is something I would hate". (In casual speech, you'd be more likely to hear something like, "Living there--I'd hate that.")
There may be something to the notion that "living" puts more emphasis on the process than "to live", but the distinction is weak at best. At least I don't notice much difference between "I'd hate living there" and "I'd hate to live there". Perhaps other native speakers feel differently.
Note on punctuation: I may have mentioned before that English sets off clauses with commas only when they are restrictive relative clauses. E.g. "That house, which by the way I would hate living in, is for sale." We never use them with clausal complements, e.g. "He told me that he would hate living in that house." That's German usage, not English.