Hi, Anton Shepelev!
I read your message from 03.07.2022 13:27

  ak>> In one story I read this:
  AS> A nice way to meantion that pearl of English literature --
  AS> Jekyll&Hyde. By the way, I highly commend all of Stevenson's short
  AS> stories, which are legally available for free (as in beer) and in
  AS> free (as in freedom) formats, such as. txt and. epub!

  ak>> ... "The face of Hyde sat heavily on his memory. He felt (what was
  ak>> rare to him) a nausea and distaste of life, and in the gloom of
  ak>> his spirits, he seemed to read a menace in the flickering of the
  ak>> firelight on the polished cabinets and the uneasy starting of the
  ak>> shadow on the roof."

  ak>> I saw a strange using of the Infinitive:

  AS> a strage *use* of the Infinitive:

Can I use "using" without an article ("I saw strange using...")? I am 
sure there is no strict rule on this account.

  ak>> ... in the gloom of his spirits, he seemed TO READ a menace in the
  ak>> flickering of the firelight...

  ak>> What would happen if I put it without TO:... in the gloom of his
  ak>> spirits, he seemed READ a menace in the flickering of the
  ak>> firelight...

  AS> "he seemed to read" above is not strage but standard and frequent,
  AS> and means "it seemed to him" or "himseemed". I am sure you have
  AS> encountered the pattern hundereds of times but paid no attention to
  AS> it -- it is that unavoidable:

  AS> -- Your cat seems to dislike me.
  AS> -- You seem to make several posts a week
  AS> -- He seems to feel ill at ease.

  AS> `seem' is not special in this regard, for many other verbs take the
  AS> infinitive in like manner, such as `want', `prefer', `like',
  AS> `love'...

  AS> "He seemed read a menace in the flicker of the firelight" is simply
  AS> ungrammatical: when I fed it to my English parser, it returned a
  AS> syntax error. Know you of a single precedent in English literature
  AS> of two verbs in apposion, one in the Past Simple and the other a
  AS> bear infinitive?

In my case "the other" was not a "bare infinite" -- the first one is in 
Past Simple(seemed) and other is also in Past simple (read).

PS: Is your English parser is also a spell checker?

Bye, Anton!
Alexander Koryagin
fido.english_tutor,local.cc.ak 2022
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