In the EGP, Point 223 in the category of modality is used to talk about not being brave enough to do something. It seems an unusual piece of grammar in that it is an infinitive next to another infinitive without “to”. It also is surrounded usually by verbs of speech.
Collocates 5 to the left and right on iWeb corpus:
1 TRY (VVI ) 71
2 SAY (VVI ) 66
3 ASK (VVI ) 62
4 ANYTHING (PN1 ) 48
5 TELL (VVI ) 38
6 SPEAK (VVI ) 23
7 LEAVE (VVI ) 21
8 TOUCH (VVI ) 18
