except的用法

Question

是 一定要 ing 形式吗
讲清楚原因 要确定是对的

Answer 1

Except这个词比较复杂，值得跟大家详细解答交流。

首先，你的例句比：He could do nothing except______(watch) TV.
其中，do+动名词 的结果决定了后面的填空也必须用动名词，即watching.

另一个类似的句子是，
Tom does everything around the house except cook.
这里cook是跟does平行的。但如想跟everything平行，也能用cooking.
同理，你的句子里也能用watch.

其它用法是：
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English里届时，except既可作preposition，也可作conjunction.。如作为介词，后面当然也只能跟动名词，如该词典给的例句：
Mike's sister is almost good at everything except ironing.

英文说明：The choice of -ing form of the verb after except is determined by a word or phrase coming earlier in the sentence; in this case good at, which normally takes an -ing form.

而在另一本词典里(Collins Cobuild) ，由于动词是not do，所以后面的结构就要跟to+不定式。
Ida would not speak to him except to answer questions.

在以下这个例句中：
The graduate student had nothing in mind except ____ his thesis.
(A) finishing (B) finish (C) finished (D) to finish
--------本应选A。但如果加了to do，如下句
The graduate student had nothing to do except finish his thesis. 就要选B，即finish了。

此外，except后面也可加从句：
I didn't tell him anything except that I needed the money.
其中，except可与save对换，这是后话。