Author Topic: The uses of the “is to +verb”/“are to + verb” grammatical structure  (Read 28377 times)

Joe Carillo

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Question e-mailed by Jhumur Dasgupta (June 6, 2012):

I have frequently come across sentence structures such as “is to”/“are to” such as the one given below:

“Four of Greece’s leading banks are to receive a $23 billion capital injection to replenish reserves that were hit by country’s massive debt restructuring deal.”

I prefer not using those structures as I don’t have much clue about them, instead opting to use “will” structures. Can you please explain in detail the usefulness of “is to”/“are to” structures and when to use them?

My reply to Jhumur:

In formal English, the “is to”/“are to” grammatical structure is often used to state officially mandated arrangements, plans, or regulations. In the present tense, they evoke the sense of a definite expectation that the action or activity referred to will be undertaken or will take place in the near future, as in the sentence you presented as example:

“Four of Greece’s leading banks are to receive a $23 billion capital injection to replenish reserves that were hit by country’s massive debt restructuring deal.”



Such sentences that use “is to” or “are to” in tandem with the verb—“receive” in the case of the sentence above—convey the idea of a very strong certainty, in contrast to sentences that use the usual future-tense structure “will receive,” as in the following construction:

“Four of Greece’s leading banks will receive a $23 billion capital injection to replenish reserves that were hit by country’s massive debt restructuring deal.”

In this simple future-tense version of the “are to receive” sentence, the element of the mandate to make the action happen is absent, and only the futurity and not the strong certainty of that action is evoked.

When the “is to”/“are to” structure is in its past-tense form “was to”/“were to” and is followed by the base form of the verb, their combination forms the so-called perfect infinitive tense. This tense describes a planned action or activity that didn’t take place for a stated reason, as in the following hypothetical variation of the sentence you presented:

“Four of Greece’s leading banks were to receive a $23 billion capital injection to replenish reserves that were hit by country’s massive debt restructuring deal, but the plan was aborted due to strong opposition by general public.”

The “is to”/“are to” grammatical structure also finds common use either to issue or acknowledge instructions or orders, as in the following examples:

Issuing an order: “You are to report to work at exactly 8:30 a.m. Mondays to Fridays.”
Acknowledging an order: “We are to report to work at exactly 8:30 a.m. Mondays to Fridays.”

Note that the aspect of compulsion to do the stated action is markedly absent or at most weak when the simple future tense is used:

At best an expectation: “You will report to work at exactly 8:30 a.m. Mondays to Fridays.”
At best a promise: “We will report to work at exactly 8:30 a.m. Mondays to Fridays.”
« Last Edit: August 23, 2019, 11:48:10 AM by Joe Carillo »