Author Topic: When to use the bare infinitive and the full infinitive  (Read 12478 times)

Joe Carillo

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When to use the bare infinitive and the full infinitive
« on: June 09, 2017, 12:23:37 PM »
Take a look at these two sentences:

(1) “This section covers a breadth of important information that will help you tackle any analytical problem that is thrown at you on the exam.”

(2) “This section covers a breadth of important information that will help you to tackle any analytical problem that is thrown at you on the exam.”


Which of them is constructed properly—Sentence 1, which uses the bare infinitive “tackle” in the subordinate clause “that will help you tackle any analytical problem that is thrown at you on the exam,” or Sentence 2, which uses the full infinitive “to tackle” instead in that same subordinate clause?

A member of Jose Carillo’s English Forum who calls herself Jeanne was curious if there’s a general rule for using the bare infinitive or full infinitive, so I made the following analysis of the two sentences as a basis for making that choice:

To simplify the analysis, let’s begin with Sentence 2. In that sentence, the italicized phrase “to tackle any analytical problem that is thrown at you on the exam” is what’s called an infinitive phrase. We will recall that an infinitive phrase is simply an infinitive—a verb in the present tense that’s normally preceded by “to”—together with its modifiers, objects, or complements. In Sentence 2, that infinitive is “to tackle” and its modifier is the phrase “any analytical problem that is thrown at you on the exam.”

In Sentence 1, on the other hand, the italicized phrase “tackle any analytical problem that is thrown at you on the exam” is what’s called a bare infinitive phrase. A bare infinitive phrase is one where the infinitive—“tackle” in this case—has dropped the “to.” The bare infinitive “tackle” in Sentence 1 works in conjunction with the helping verb “help,” and you can see that it has dropped the “to” from “to tackle” without messing up the grammar and semantics of the sentence. In fact, you must have noticed that Sentence 1 with the bare infinitive even reads and sounds better than Sentence 2 with the full infinitive.


But the big question is this: Is there a general rule for using bare infinitives or full infinitives?

To work properly or at least sound right, some sentence constructions using the infinitive phrase need to drop “to” or have the option drop it. This happens in two specific instances:

(1) When the infinitive phrase works in conjunction with such perception verbs as “see,” “feel,” “hear,” and “watch”; and

(2) When the infinitive phrase works in conjunction with such helping verbs as “help,” “let,” and “make.”

Sentence 1 with the bare infinitive “tackle” belongs to the second category, and it just so happens this sentence reads and sounds better than Sentence 2 with the full infinitive “to tackle.” Even with the full infinitive, though, take note that Sentence 2 also works properly and sounds perfectly.

WHEN TO USE THE BARE INFINITIVE

But certain sentence constructions absolutely need to use the bare infinitive to work properly, like this one: “We saw the building collapse like a deck of cards.” When the full infinitive is used, the sentence sounds very awkward: “We saw the building to collapse like a deck of cards.” This construction should be avoided.

The bare-infinitive construction is also called for in the following sentence where the infinitive “to rise” works in conjunction with the perception verb “watch”: “They watched the young man rise spectacularly in the organization without making any effort at all.” Now see how awful and stilted that sentence becomes when it uses the full infinitive “to rise”: “They watched the young man to rise spectacularly in the organization without making any effort at all.”

Indeed, there aren’t any hard-and-fast rules for making the choice between using a full infinitive and a bare infinitive in a sentence. We ultimately just have to play it by ear.

This essay, 710th in the series, first appeared in the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times on October 2, 2010, © 2010 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2017, 12:39:54 PM by Joe Carillo »