"I go to school" Because 'to' is a preposition then is it correct to write "I go to watching the movie"?
If not, please explain why. Thank you.
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The latter is definitely not correct. I think the problem is that your verb just doesn't match. "I go to school" is fine, as would be "I object to watching the movie." But "I go to watching the movie" is wrong. Maybe someone else can explain why in technical terms. – nomad Jun 29 '15 at 13:30
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It's not enough that *school* and *watching the movie* are both nouns. The "locative" preposition *to* requires that it be followed by a referent that you can treat as a (literal or figurative) location (or "final state", as in idiomatic got to pot, go to seed, go to pieces). – FumbleFingers Jun 29 '15 at 15:09
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The preposition 'to' needs a noun phrase / ing-phrase with nouniness: I go to school / I go to the cinema / I went to Leeds / I go to dancing on Thursdays / *I go to dancing in the moonlight. The last example does not work because 'dancing' is not near enough to the noun end of the continuum here. //// 'I went to watch the movie' does not use the preposition; this 'to' is the infinitive marker. Go + to-infinitive is a well-known catenation. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 29 '15 at 15:10
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They are not equivalent sentences. "I go to school" has one verb. If you want to use two for your second sentence, you should use an infinitive "I go to watch the movies". But this is using "to" in a different way: indicating an infinitive rather than being a preposition. The true equivalent would be "I go to the movies". – Margana Jun 29 '15 at 15:12