I know that the basic rule is go + bare infinitive therefore it would be:
Go cook! Go swim! Go drink! Go shop!Go eat! etc.
Now my doubt is that if we can use with the expressions above the ing form and if there is any difference between them.
e.g. Go cooking! Go swimming!Go eating!Go shopping!Go drinking! etc.
“Go cook!”, “Go swim!”, “Go drink!” etc. are AmE only.
“Go verb-ing!” is grammatically OK in BrE (and, as far as I know, in AmE), but it works better with certain verbs than with others. For example, “Go shopping!” is reasonable, but “Go eating!” doesn’t seem very likely.
Could this pattern ( go + ing) work as ‘let’s go + ing’?
For instance we can say: let’s go swimming/shopping/training but we can’t say ‘let’s go eating’ therefore it would be 'let’s go eat/cook/listen . Is this statement right?
Which verbs can’t be used in the ‘go + ing’ pattern?
Another doubt that I have is on what we base that the verb would go in the ing form or in the base form regarding the pattern ‘let’s go+ ing or bare infinitive’?
For instance why can’t we say ‘let’s go eating’ but we can say ‘let’s go drinking/shopping/hiking/training’ etc?
Could it be that ‘let’s + ing’ is used with some sort of sports activities ?
Just as before, “let’s go verb-ing” is grammatically OK, but works better with some verbs than others. For example, “let’s go swimming/shopping” sound natural, while “let’s go eating” sounds a bit odd. Again as before, "let’s go " is AmE.
In theory, the more that “verb-ing” is viewed as an activity that one goes somewhere to do, the more natural “let’s go verb-ing” ought to be. “shopping” is a good example of an -ing form that has strong “go somewhere to do an activity” associations, so “Let’s go shopping” is very natural. “thinking”, on the other hand, does not fit this requirement, so “Let’s go thinking” seems unlikely. However, there are, I think, anomalous, borderline and idiomatic cases. For example, “working” is an activity that one goes somewhere to do, yet “Let’s go working” isn’t very natural. One would say “Let’s go to work”. “Let’s go eating/drinking” are interesting too. “drinking” seems a lot more likely than “eating” in this pattern, yet “eating” is also something that people go out to do.
Note also that there are other contexts in which “go verb-ing” can be used, other than the ones you’ve mentioned. For example, “Go believing!” and “Let’s go believing!” make no sense, yet you can say “Don’t go believing everything you hear”.
Would ‘go doing it’ sound natural, what about ‘go cooking’( I know that with let’s it should be ‘let’s go cook’)?
Regarding your last example , could it work with any verb?
“Let’s go doing it” is not natural. You would say “Let’s go and do it” or (AmE) “Let’s go do it”. In other patterns, the words “go doing it” may appear together; for example, “Don’t go doing it again”. “Let’s go cooking” is not impossible, but it is not very often that you would want to say such a thing. There are a number of Google hits for TV shows and cookery courses called “Let’s go cooking”, and in that context it seems OK.
The “Don’t go verb-ing…” pattern is informal, so it may not work well with some very formal or technical verbs. It also doesn’t make much sense in cases where the addressee has no control or influence (e.g. “Don’t go suffering from flu”), but otherwise I think you can use it with most verbs.
Thank you.One last thing what’s the difference if I use this pattern in declarative sentences:
We can go cook at Joe’s house tonight.
We can go shopping in town tonight if you want.
“We can go cook at Joe’s house tonight” is OK in AmE. In BrE it would be “We can go and/to cook…”
“We can go shopping in town tonight if you want” is fine.
Could the verb ‘start’ follow the same pattern above as the verb ‘go’ ?
e.g. Start do it! or Start doing it!
“Start do it!” is wrong. (All similar sentences, like “Start cook!”, “Start swim!”, “Start read this!” etc., are wrong.)
“Start doing it!” is OK, as are “Start cooking!”, “Start swimming!”, “Start reading this!” etc.
You are still making the same old mistakes with spacing. You have got into some bad habits which you are obviously having difficulty recognising and correcting. I’m sorry to keep on about it, but in English spacing is important. You may find it useful to look back through this thread and try to identify the spacing errors that you have made. I counted 11.
So could I resume that ‘start’ in the imperative sentences is always followed by the ing form?
(I’m guessing that you mean “assume” rather than “resume”.)
You can also use "Start to ". It seems to me that this is more likely in gentler imperatives, perhaps where there is more of a sense of ongoing process than a sudden command. For example, in a capsizing boat you would be more likely to shout “Start swimming!”. However, if you are teaching a beginners’ swimming class, and have just got the learners ready to take their first stroke, you could say “And now … start to swim!”. This is not a black and white rule, but just an apparent tendency.
By the way Allthewayanime, out of curiosity, what part of the world are you from?
So in the end it wouldn’t be correct if I use the bare infinitive(in imperative sentences) after start/stop, would it?
I am from Romania, but now I am living in Italy.
No.
if I use the bare infinitive(in imperative sentences) – INCORRECT SPACING
if I use the bare infinitive (in imperative sentences) – CORRECT SPACING