When to use "de" before verbs

[Tycholiz]

Just reading something here, and came across the sentence: "emocionado de trabajar con Tim". I also noticed it here: "No tuvimos oportunidad de ver el fantástico espectáculo."

Why is this necessary and when do I need to use de?

Cheers for the help!!

[aleCcowaN]

"De" allows you to parse the sentence properly

emocionado trabajar = emotional working ...
emocionado de trabajar = thrilled of working ...

[Tycholiz]

Even months later, I'm still having trouble with this issue. I was wondering if you or anyone else could clarify a bit for me. For example, if I want to say "This year's survey of farmers should have wrapped up" could i translate the meaning to "La encuesta de los granjeros de este año debe haber terminado" or would the ending be "debe haber de terminado"? Sometimes when I see 3 verbs chunked together (consecutively in english) I notice that between the second and third verb the word "de" is thown in there. is there a general rule i can use for when to use de and when not to? thanks!

[Rusty]

In the 'deber de' construct, the preposition 'de' is used to express likelihood. The verb (deber) is conjugated. The preposition follows the conjugated verb. What follows 'de' is always a noun, even though it may look like a verb to you. An infinitive functions as a noun in Spanish.

So 'debe de haber terminado' is correct. The conjugated verb and its preposition are back-to-back. The infinitive 'haber terminado' acts as a noun.

[aleCcowaN]

Without "de" it also expresses conjecture in many regions: "ya debe haber terminado".

I think Tycholiz' question is too generic. We have adjectives followed by nouns -including infinitives-, we have some constructions involving verbs and nouns, as this "(deber) de ...", and we also have verbs followed by nouns:

cansado de esperar (adjective followed by noun) -de denotes reason-
cansado de esperar pero contento de poder estar haciéndolo ("poder estar haciéndolo" is a extremely complicated noun constructed by verboides and a pronoun)

vengo de trabajar (verb followed by noun) - de denotes origin-
vengo de trabajar y voy a pasear ( ir+a being a verbal periphasis)