he saw in her eyes her love to him

[GoodTaste]

A Chinese made this sentence:

At this moment, he saw in her eyes her love to him.

Does the sentence sound natural in English?

 

[SoothingDave]

For him

 

[GoodTaste]

For him

It is exactly what my first reaction was.

But I was thinking why "to" is not working there. My guess is that "love for someone" shows the quality of being exclusive ("love exclusive for someone") while "love to someone" doesn't have the quality. I am not sure whether I am on the right track.

 

[SoothingDave]

You aren't. "For" doesn't mean "exclusive."

A lot of times prepositions are not a matter of nuance, they are just what is commonly used. We have love "for" someone or something.

 

[Phaedrus]

At this moment, he saw in her eyes her love to him.

Does the sentence sound natural in English?

In addition to changing to to for, you might want to position the direct object immediately after the verb. That would sound more natural to me.

At this moment, he saw her love for him in her eyes.
At this moment, in her eyes, he saw her love for him.
In her eyes at this moment, he saw her love for him.
In her eyes, he saw her love for him at this moment.

 

[SoothingDave]

Is that on the weekend or at the weekend?

 

[Skrej]

There is no point in trying to apply logic to English prepositions. They are a law unto themselves.

Eh, more like an art than a law, really.

 

[tedmc]

Eh, more like an art than a law, really.

There is much leeway in art with no definite right-or-wrong answers but not so in the use of prepositions.

 

[Skrej]

There is much leeway in art with no definite right-or-wrong answers but not so in the use of prepositions.

You seemed to have missed either the joke, or the reference. Are you familiar with the expression "X is more art than science", or the similar variation "X is as much art as science"?

It was a humorous (or so I once thought) allusion to the "logic" of prepositions, not the actual application of them.