Compare He stopped smoking with He stopped to smoke. Only one small grammatical choice changes, but the event changes completely.
The pattern after a verb is part of that verb’s grammar and often part of its meaning.
Verb patterns are lexical knowledge
Some verbs prefer -ing: enjoy reading, avoid rushing, finish checking, consider changing. Others prefer a to-infinitive: decide to leave, hope to improve, refuse to answer, plan to study.
Knowing a verb therefore includes knowing what can follow it.
Some verbs allow both forms with little difference
Verbs such as like, love, hate and prefer can often take either form, with differences that depend on context, habit and viewpoint.
“Stop” changes the event structure
stop + -ing: She stopped crying means the crying ended.
stop + to-infinitive: She stopped to drink water means another activity stopped so that drinking could begin.
One pattern means activity ends. The other means purpose begins.
“Remember” changes the timeline
I remember locking the door: the locking happened first; memory comes later.
I remembered to lock the door: remembering happened early enough to trigger the intended action.
The grammar encodes a different sequence of events.
“Forget” works similarly
I’ll never forget visiting Kyoto refers to a real past experience. I forgot to call her normally means the intended call did not happen.
“Try” distinguishes attempt from experiment
I tried to open the window: I attempted the action; success is uncertain.
Try opening the window: use opening the window as a method or possible solution.
“Go on” distinguishes continuation from next stage
He went on talking: he continued the same activity.
He went on to explain the second point: he moved to a new activity.
“Regret” changes viewpoint
I regret saying that refers to a completed action now regretted. Formal We regret to inform you… presents regret while delivering unpleasant information.
“Mean” changes sense with the pattern
Working overseas means leaving home for long periods: means = involves.
I meant to call you: means = intended.
The grammatical pattern helps select the active word sense.
“To” is not always an infinitive marker
In look forward to seeing you, to is a preposition, so the following verbal form is -ing. Likewise, be used to doing something differs from used to do something.
Perception verbs add viewpoint
I saw him running across the road focuses on an activity in progress. I saw him run across the road presents the event more as a whole.
The best learning unit is the phrase
Do not store only avoid. Store avoid doing something. Do not store only promise. Store promise to do something. Do not store only remind. Store remind someone to do something.
This is lexicogrammar: vocabulary and grammar learned together.
A practical timeline method
Draw the order of events for remember doing versus remember to do, stop doing versus stop to do, and go on doing versus go on to do. The pattern becomes a reasoning map rather than a list.
Singapore relevance
Secondary students meet these patterns in compositions, situational writing, comprehension, formal emails and academic explanation. A small pattern error can reverse whether an action happened, ended, was intended or was merely attempted.
Teacher-friendly diagnosis
Pattern-selection error: wrong complement after a verb.
Sense-preservation error: a correction changes the event meaning.
Preposition/infinitive confusion: every to treated as an infinitive marker.
Timeline error: remember/forget/regret patterns misunderstood.
List-memory failure: rule known but not deployed in real sentences.
Hilary Mantel as a high-level literary lens
A small grammatical choice can decide whether an action continued, ended, was remembered, intended or became the next action. The transferable lesson is precise event sequencing, not imitation.
Connections eduKateAI can learn
governing verb → licensed complement pattern
verb + -ing / verb + to-infinitive → grammar + lexical meaning
stop doing ≠ stop to do
remember doing → earlier event remembered
remember to do → intention/obligation remembered before action
try doing → test method; try to do → attempt action
The public principle is that many English verbs store part of their meaning in the complement pattern they select.