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This question is relatively simple. I don't understand why we never use passive form of to infinitive after the adjective unless the subject is "it".

For example:

He is difficult to please.

People consider the example above a correct sentence. But:

He is difficult to be pleased.

People, for example, my teacher, said it sounds wrong and told me not to write this type of sentence. Is it grammatically flawed, or is it just a stylistic choice?

tchrist
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Opaque
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    The second example is not commonly idiomatic. I suppose in this instance the two examples mean the same thing. But I can think of cases where they would have different meanings. E.g. Let's say my friend has broken a toe. I might say He finds it difficult to drive. That would have a rather different meaning to He finds it difficult to be driven. – WS2 Oct 03 '15 at 23:48
  • What's wrong with "He is happy to be pleased"? – deadrat Oct 04 '15 at 00:06
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    @deadrat The answer to your question is that difficult determines our interpretation of the object of the infinitive, whereas happy determines the subject of the infinitive. Because there is no object of a monotransitive verb when passived the OP's example is bad. But your example is fine because the subject slot of to be pleased is determined by the subject of the main verb. Your sentence means "He was happy [for him to be pleased]". Compare that with "He is difficult [for X to please him", where you can fill out X as you wish. Then compare that with ... – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 00:27
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    @deadrat ... * "He is difficult [for X to be pleased him]". There is no object slot there for him to felicitously fill. – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 00:29
  • @Araucaria I interpreted the title "infinitive used after adjective" to mean more than "infinitive used after difficult." The OP writes "the adjective," and if he means "that adjective" (i.e., difficult) my comment is inapt. If he means any predicate adjective followed by an infinitive, then his teacher has warned him off too broad a category of sentences. Your explanation makes sense, but it relies on the idiomatic circumstance that you can be happy for oneself but not difficult to oneself. If I have made this more opaque for Opaque, I apologize – deadrat Oct 04 '15 at 01:00
  • @deadrat Yes, that's exactly what their teacher has done. I'm writing a rather lengthy answer right now. – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 01:03
  • God, sorry. I only meant those words such as easy or difficult, not all of adjectives... – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 01:10
  • @Opaque Not to worry; I misinterpreted your question. Ignore my comment. – deadrat Oct 04 '15 at 01:34
  • @Opaque Deadrat, Well I've given an answer covering all adjectives now, so ... :) – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 01:37
  • @ws2 I've nicked your excellent examples for my post (and credited you), because I was tired and could dream any more up. And because they were excellent. Hope that's ok! – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 02:01
  • @Araucaria By all means, do be my guest. I am a mere native speaker without your incisive grammatical understanding, so my contribution much of the time is limited to thinking of different cases etc and testing things they say - a linguistician's bag carrier. – WS2 Oct 04 '15 at 08:44
  • They are both correct. We can choose either an active infinitive or a passive infinitive. It's at your will. But, as you may assume, the active version is more simpler in its length, so speakers will obviously use the active version more commonly. – Kim Hui-jeong Apr 18 '20 at 13:05

3 Answers3

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Adjectives which take infinitival phrases as complement fall into three camps.

  1. Some adjectives determine our interpretation of the subject of the infinitival clause.

  2. Some adjectives determine our interpretation of the object of the infinitival clause.

  3. Some adjectives don't determine our interpretation of either the subject or the object of the infinitival clause.

Group 1

Adjectives in the first group are often called control adjectives. Generative linguists would say they involve Equi deletion. For our purposes it isn't important what we call them. Let's look at an example:

  • Bob was keen to finish his book.

The adjective phrase headed by keen is the complement of the verb BE. Within the phrase, keen is taking an infinitival clause:

  • to finish his book

This infinitival clause has an understood subject. The subject must be the same as the subject of the main verb, BE. The sentence means:

  • Bob was keen [for Bob to finish his book]

So when we use the adjective keen like this, the subject of the main clause controls our interpretation of the subject of the infinitival clause. Some other adjectives like this are anxious, delighted, eager.

Notice that these adjectives only work this way if we don't overtly mention the subject of the infinitival clause. If we actually mention a different subject, the sentence will still be fine:

  • Bob is keen for Mary to finish her book.

The adjective keen only determines our interpretation of the subject if we don't state who the subject actually is.

Lastly notice that we can easily use passive infinitivals with adjectives like keen. Passive infinitivals still have an empty subject slot which can be filled:

  • Bob was keen to be kissed by Mary.
  • Bob was keen [for Bob to be kissed by Mary].

There's no problem using passive infinitival clauses with adjectives like keen

Group 2

Some linguists who talk about these adjectives, talk about adjectives which take hollow clauses. Others talk about adjectives that involve tough movement. Again, it doesn't matter what we call these adjectives here.

Let's look at an example:

  • The orangutans are difficult to please.

Again we see an adjective phrase functioning as the complement of the verb BE. Again this adjective is taking an infinitival clause as its own complement. This infinitival clause has a vaguely understood subject. The subject of the infinitival clause isn't determined by the grammar. The listener can just mentally fill in the subject with whoever they think is suitable. In the sentence above the subject of the verb please is just people in general. We can reconstruct it like this:

  • The orangutans were difficult [for people to please]

If we change the sentence we will get a different understanding of the subject:

  • I found the orangutans difficult to please.

This sentence probably means:

  • I found the orangutans difficult [for me to please].

It doesn't have to mean that though. It could mean that I found that zookeepers generally found the orangutans difficult to please. The subject of the clause is just determined by our interpretation of the context.

However! I haven't given the complete picture here. The verb please usually takes an object. But the object of the infinitives in the examples above is missing. I should have modelled our interpretation of the example above like this:

  • The orangutans are difficult [for people to please ___ ]

Here our interpretation of the object slot there is strictly determined. It's determined by the subject of the matrix verb, the subject of the main clause. So we understand the sentence like this:

  • The orangutans are difficult [for people to please them]

Here, our interpretation of the object of the infinitive is determined by the subject of the main verb.

Now notice that if we make the infinitival into a passive, the object slot will disappear. Passive clauses don't have an object slot, usually, because the object of the active version of the clause has been turned into the subject of the passive one. There is no object slot to fill. This means that if we use a verb like difficult with a passive infinitival in a sentence like this, the sentence will be badly formed:

  • *The orangutans were difficult to be pleased.

If a native speaker reads this sentence it will hurt their language brain. The speaker obviously wants the orangutans to fill the subject slot of be pleased. The grammar won't let this happen. Our brains are already trying to fill in some kind of object slot after the verb please with the orangutans. This results in a car crash:

  • *The orangutans were difficult [for someone to be pleased the orangutans]

Other adjectives like difficult are dangerous, strange, good, bad, impossible.

Group 3

Some adjectives don't fall into groups 1 or 2. We can't use them as predicate adjectives when they have an infinitival clause as complement. That is to say we can't use such adjective phrases as Predicative Complements. One of these adjectives is the word possible:

  • *A Rubik's cube is possible to be done.
  • *Pineapples are possible to grow here.
  • *Whales are possible to swim.

These sentences are ungrammatical. They are odd because they seem to be verging on the grammatical, but just don't seem to quite work properly.

Extrapositions using dummy it

We can use the adjectives from group three in sentences involving extrapositions. These sentences use the dummy pronoun it.

  • It is possible to do a rubix cube.
  • It is possible to grow pineapples here.
  • It is possible for whales to swim.

Notice that if we state the subject of the infinitival clause it must be preceded by the subordinator for, as in the whales example.

We can also use adjectives from group 2 in extrapositions. When they appear in extrapositions, our interpretation of the object isn't determined, it's understood from the context. I've taken these useful examples from WS2's comments

  • After my car accident it was difficult to drive.

Here we understand that I probably find it difficult to drive cars. Notice that because the interpretation of the object slot isn't grammatically determined, we can freely use passive infinitivals here:

  • After my car accident it was difficult to be driven.

Note that we don't seem to be able to use adjectives from group 1 in extrapositions:

  • It was keen to leave.

This only makes sense if we understand it as being an actual thing. It cannot be a dummy pronoun here.

Notes

1. Adjectives phrases like those in groups 1 and 2 normally function as predicative complements. Predicative complements can describe either the subject or the object of the verb. I have oversimplified things in the story in the post above. I have said that the subject of the matrix verb determines our interpretation of the subject or object of the infinitival, but what determines this is actually the predicand of the predicative complement, not necessarily the subject. So in Bob was eager to please the adjective phrase eager ... describes Bob and therefore Bob is interpreted as the subject of please. But in Bob found Mary eager to please the adjective phrase eager ... describes Mary and so Mary is understood as the subject of the verb please.

2. Yes, possible and impossible are in different groups. Crazy, isn't it.

Araucaria - Him
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  • Thnk you for the answer! This covers a broad subject with some depth, really. I could see that you used for...to as a means of explaining the point of all this. But why can't you say orangutans are difficult for oragjutans to be pleased? You can say Bob is keen for Bob to be kissed by Mary, right? I can see that someone should please orangutans, and the subject cannot be orangutans, but what if they try to please themselves? I know that this question feels like a joke and not serious, but it is confusing me... – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 01:57
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    @Opaque Because tough adjectives like difficult must have an empty object slot in the infinitival clause. If there isn't one the sentence won't work. Notice though that you could make a version of your desired sentence though: "Orangutans are difficult for orangutans to please". This is because there is still an empty object slot in the infinitival clause. It means "Orangutans are difficult for orangutans to please [them]". In this sentence we understand the object of "please" to be the subject of are = i.e. the orangutans! – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 02:17
  • And this empty object slot is the subject of the sentence or the subject of the complement, and nothing else, am I correct? – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 02:23
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    "Pineapples are impossible to grow here" is perfectly okay. – Greg Lee Oct 04 '15 at 02:26
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    @GregLee Yes, that's because impossible's a tough adjective - unlike possible, which isn't. Or so, I believe. Strange that isn't it! – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 02:27
  • @GregLee Or do you mean 'possible to grow' is perfectly ok? I agree it only seems marginally bad in this particular sentence. – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 02:29
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    @Araucaria, "possible to grow" is pretty good -- I'm still mulling it over. – Greg Lee Oct 04 '15 at 02:32
  • So ths infinitival phrases after group one does not have an empty object slot? Also, does group one include every adjectives that include emotions, such as happy or sad? – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 02:43
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    And if it does, why can't I use extrapositions with dummy subject "it" with adjectives from first group? Saying "it was sad to watch my tem lose" is correct, isn't it? – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 02:47
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    @Araucaria Wonderful answer. Thanks for taking the time. All I'm able to add (and probably unable to stop myself) are quibbles essentially about typos. "Other verbs like difficult are difficult, dangerous,...." No need for the second difficulty. And in "Here we understand that I probably to drive cars" isn't something missing? "I probably find it difficult to drive cars" perhaps? – deadrat Oct 04 '15 at 02:49
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    @Opaque More often than not they don't, no. With regard to your emotions question, not exactly. Adjectives that denote things that cause emtions are usually like tough ajdectives, it seems to me off the top of my head. These adjectives often end in -ing. So for example, thrilling is a group 2 adjective. But I reckon most of the -ed adjectives like thrilled for example are group 1. – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 02:49
  • @deadrat Thanks for that! Think I fixed the drive cars one while you were typing, but hadn't spotted the double difficulty difficulty. I think it's still riddled with them but am trying to go through it ... – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 02:52
  • Is the fact that adjectives of group one do not have to have empty object slot why we can use passive infinitival phrases after them? – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 02:55
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    @Opaque Ok, hold on a moment. I think that's because some adjectives belong to more than one group. For example, the adjective ready. Consider It's ready to eat. Ready can belong with group 1 or group 2, so that sentence can mean the dog was ready to eat or The meal was ready to eat. – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 02:57
  • Thank you! Does it mean sad belong to both groups? – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 03:00
  • @Opaque Not really I don't think. The real reason is that both active and passive infinitivals can have an empty subject slot. But I suppose we could say that the reason that passives aren't blocked for group 1 is that they don't need an empty object slot! – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 03:02
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    @Opaque Yes, I think it belongs in groups 1 and 2. I was sad to leave and the film was sad to watch – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 03:05
  • So the real reason adjectives of group 2 do not have passive infinitival phrase is because they do not have empty subject slot? But what if the subject repeats? – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 03:10
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    @Opaque No, group 2 needs an object slot, group 1 only needs a subject lot (or a specified subject). But for group 2, if the infinitive's a passive it no longer has an object slot (because the object of an active clause becomes the subject of a passive one) – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 03:14
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    @Opaque I'm off to hit the hay. If you have any more questions just leave them here and I'll have a look in the morning. – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 03:20
  • Ah... now I see the light of understanding! And in the extraposition with group one's adjectives, the absence of object slot is caused by the dummy subject "it", since "it" is not a proper subject or object when not used as actual 'thing', but rather an abstract idea, right? – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 03:21
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    @Opaque That's right. We can't understand the dummy it as the semantic subject of the infinitival verb. – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 03:25
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    I am doing what you told me to do...hoping that you would see it in the morning. So group 1 does not need object slot but needs subject slot, where as group 2 needs both of them...right? – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 03:28
  • Also, you said the reason group 1 can be passive is because it has empty subject slot. And I understood the empty subject slot as the slot for the repeated subject as in "Bob is happy (for Bob) to go to a movie theater". But how does this empty subject slot enable group 1 to have passive infinitival phrases? I know that the fact group one does not need object slot can be considered the reason it can have passive infinitival phrases, but I do not understand how the presence of empty subject slots can affect the presence of passive infinitival phrases in sentences with adjectives from group 1. – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 03:53
  • And just one more. When adjectives are used with "too" like "too heavy", does this belong to group 1 or 2? – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 04:03
  • Also, when I put "difficult to be understood" in google search, I get lots of examples, and if you go to page 7 or 9 or further, you will find many instances of it being used with a proper subject like "law is difficult to be understood". Why do people use this structure a lot? Are those grammatically incorrect? – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 04:24
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    @Araucaria This is an excellent reference post. I am glad to have been of some minor help. Thanks. I have just been pondering one peripheral matter. The meal was ready to eat. This really means be eaten doesn't it. But we only use the active (when we mean the passive) where context clarifies. But the only example I can think of where the passive would be essential might have occurred in an allegory like Orwell's Animal Farm - After hearing Old Major's speech, the pigs were not ready (in no mood) to be eaten. – WS2 Oct 04 '15 at 09:57
  • @Opaque Regarding group 1 and passive infinitivals. Active clauses have a subject slot and passive clauses have a subject slot: "Bob teaches" and "Bob was taught". So if we have a clause like that as the complement of an adjective the other subject of the matrix verb can control our interpretation of the subject position in the infinitival: "Bob was eager [for Bob to teach]" and "Bob was eager [for Bob to be taught]". The problem with group 2 and passives is that the object slot needs to be determined ... – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 11:37
  • @Opaque ... Active clauses can have an object slot, but usually passives can't: "Someone pushed Bob", but "Bob was pushed". That first clause has an object (in bold), the second, the passive one has a subject, but no object (that's why there is no word in bold letters there). – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 11:41
  • @Opaque Yes, it makes a big difference to the grammar when there is a too phrase. I don't fully understand the grammar of those too-sentences. – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 11:46
  • @Opaque Google: I think you'll find three different kinds of things. Firstly, you'll find a lot of texts by non-native speakers. Secondly you'll find constructions which look similar but aren't for one reason or another (so for example sentences using too). Thirdly you might find examples from different varieties of English. I've written my answer about standard English in the UK, and I believe, the US. But there may be many Englishes where certain adjectives work differently. I know, for example, that in Singapore English, many infinitive constructions work differently. Lastly ... – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 12:25
  • @Opaque ... language is always changing and many things worked slightly differently a few hundred years ago. For example people used to be able to say things like "his this friend". It's possible that you might find historical examples and that various adjectives have changed groups over the years. Of course, you might just find the kind of thing that you'll see in this post if you look at the edit history - loads of mistakes and typos! – Araucaria - Him Oct 04 '15 at 12:33
  • Thank you so much! Your dedication and helpfulness are truly unbelivable. I know that I asked too much, and you might be frustrated, but I came across this sentence. "Our life is difficult to be called a luxurious life." Strangely, even though it is in passive infinitival phrase, its object slot is filled in... but if I apply the subject slot to it: "our life is difficult (for our life) to be called a luxurious life." Hm... it seems to make sense, but I am not entirely sure. Also, if I put it in active form, I get something like this. "Our life is difficult to call a luxurious life". It ... – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 17:20
  • ...sounds strange. So with some verbs that has its own object, like call, should I use active infinitive or passive infinitive? – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 17:21
  • @Opaque In modern standard English that sentence - "Our life is difficult to be called a luxurious life." - is ungrammatical. I wouldn't advise copying it! – Araucaria - Him Oct 05 '15 at 13:34
  • @WS2 Yes, that's an interesting point. One might have thought that because ready belongs to two groups the passive would have been redundant. But, as you show, not so! Might be useful too for cannibals in order to avoid any misunderstanding when addressing their guests? – Araucaria - Him Oct 07 '15 at 14:07
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    @Araucaria It does seem a crazy state of affairs when one can say, perfectly grammatically The dinner is ready to eat, are you? – WS2 Oct 07 '15 at 15:15
  • @WS2 The anti-comma-splice faction would reject this. As to grammaticality, it depends on whether zeugma is considered ungrammatical or not. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 15 '17 at 10:22
  • What happens with intransitive infinitives like Startled deer are quick to flee or happy babies are quick to fall asleep? Or is quick an adverb not an adjective here? – tchrist Dec 28 '20 at 19:22
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*"He is difficult to be pleased" is ungrammatical. The object of the infinitival verb can be made subject ("He is difficult to please [him]"), but the subject cannot ("He is difficult to [him] be pleased").

Why does it work that way? I don't know. The syntactic rule involved is tough-movement, which has a Wikipedia entry, Tough movement.

Greg Lee
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  • I do not understand how "he is diffichlt to please him" makes sense...I'm not a native speaker, so can you explain? I thought that I should not put "him" after the to infinitive associated with though movement... – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 01:12
  • "He is difficult to please him" does not make sense. I'm sorry that I gave a confusing shorthand of indicating that the "he" subject is derived from the original object of "please". Did you look up my reference? It is pretty clear. – Greg Lee Oct 04 '15 at 01:28
  • I did. Thank you for the reference. But when the passive to infinitive is used with adjective, it seems to me that only adjectives associated with someone's feelings, such as happy, sad, etc. can be followed by those passive to infinitives (ex: happy to be a teacher). Why is that so? – Opaque Oct 04 '15 at 01:33
  • I don't understand your question. Your example "happy to be a teacher" does not have a passive "to" infinitive. Adjectives and verbs associated with feelings have some special syntactic properties -- they are called "emotives". – Greg Lee Oct 04 '15 at 02:22
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    @Araucaria, not me. I never downvote anything, much less you. – Greg Lee Oct 04 '15 at 02:30
  • *"To him be pleased" would be ungrammatical anyway; in infinitival small clauses, the subject comes before the "to", and is often introduced with "for": "It is difficult for him to be pleased" (though this does not mean the same thing as "He is difficult to please"). – ruakh Oct 04 '15 at 04:53
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Short Answer

He was difficult to please ___ .

In the sentence above, we do not state what the object of the verb please is. Our interpretation of the object of this infinitive is determined by the subject of the main verb, he. We understand the sentence as :

  • He is difficult [for someone to please him]

This is because the infinitival clause is the complement of the adjective difficult. Other adjectives don't necessarily work the same way. [Adjectives like difficult are said to take "hollow clauses", generative linguists call them "tough adjectives"]

If we passivise the infinitival clause, the sentence will be badly formed because there is no longer any object slot after the verb please. We will have trouble parsing the sentence properly:

  • *He is difficult [to be pleased him] (ungrammatical)
Araucaria - Him
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