When composing sentences in English, we will sometimes encounter situations when our desire to be scrupulously grammatical in every respect could actually result in a stilted, awful-sounding sentence. This is particularly true when we use infinitive phrases in conjunction with perception verbs like “hear” and helping verbs like “make.” As we know, an infinitive phrase is an infinitive—a verb in the present tense that’s preceded by “to”—together with its modifiers, objects, or complements. But consider what happens when we use the infinitive phrase “to confess her guilt during the preliminary investigation of the murder case” with the perception verb “hear,” as in this sentence: “We all heard her to confess her guilt during the preliminary investigation of the murder case.”
From the looks of it, that sentence is grammatically perfect, but it certainly doesn’t read and sound right! The preposition “to” in the infinitive phrase “to confess her guilt during the preliminary investigation of the murder case” sticks out like a sore thumb in that sentence and spoils it structurally. Indeed, the best way to make that sentence read and sound right is to drop the “to” from the infinitive phrase altogether, as in this revised construction: “We all heard her confess her guilt during the preliminary investigation of the murder case.”
The dropping of the “to” in such sentences is what’s called the bare infinitive solution. In an essay I wrote for my English-usage column in The Manila Times in October last year, I discussed the specific instances when the bare infinitive becomes a must for straightening out certain types of sentences that just won’t read and sound well otherwise. (February 5, 2011)
When to use the bare infinitive and the full infinitive
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.
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. (October 2, 2010)
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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, October 2, 2010 © 2010 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
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