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I read and gathered the following sentences from various grammar books concerning except + verb form:

1) I rarely need to go into the city centre except to do some shopping.
2) He does nothing except eat all day.
3) He wouldn't talk about work except to say that he was busy.
4) She's not interested in anything except skiing.


My questions:

1) Are the form of gerund and bare infinitive also correct in (1)?
2) Are the gerund and to-infinitive grammatical in (2)?
3) Similarly, is the form of gerund or bare infinitive also correct in (3)?
4) Are the bare infinitive and full infinitives interchangeable in (4)?

The graduate student had nothing in mind except to finish/finishing his thesis.

5) Thus, how can we determine which verb form grammatically correct is in a certain case after except?

Many thanks.

It’s a difficult area of grammar. So good question.
Answers:
1) No.
2) Bare infinitive is correct. The alternatives sound odd.
3) No. The alternatives sound wrong.
4) A gerund or noun is required here, so infinitives are wrong – in British English anyway.

5) How to choose the correct form:

The usual verb form after ‘except’ is the bare infinitive, as in sentence 2 – unless there is a reason to use a different form.

We use the to-infinitive where we are describing purpose i.e. where ‘in order to’ could be used instead of ‘to’ (Sentences 1 and 3).

Where a noun is also grammatically possible (4 and ‘The graduate student …’), the correct verb form is a gerund.

So your ‘graduate student’ sentence works in two possible ways: (a) with a gerund because you could use a noun phrase instead e.g. ‘the completion of his thesis’ or (b) with to+infinitive because that’s what normally follows after phrases of intention like ‘have in mind’ e.g. ‘He had it in mind to finish his thesis.’

Hello, Darcy!

Thanks a lot for answering my questions in detail.