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As a native speaker, this sounds incorrect to me:

The company does not permit to distribute the modified materials.

But, I can't explain why it is not so to a non-native speaker. To me, it should be:

The company does not permit distribution of modified materials.

Am I right? What is the grammatical explanation?

Dinesh Kumar Garg
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JuanTamad
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    Answered at When should a verb be followed by a gerund instead of an infinitive?. (Different verbs allow / need different complement clauses; 'permit' doesn't license a to-infinitve. "The company does not permit us to distribute the modified materials" is a different construction.) – Edwin Ashworth Aug 03 '16 at 11:19
  • Some verbs simply require nouns or gerunds. – MorganFR Aug 03 '16 at 11:21
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    It's ungrammatical because an infinitival clause can't satisfy the complement requirements of "permit". When used this way, "permit" usually requires a direct object, or direct object + infinitival clause, cf. The company does not permit anyone to distribute the modified materials. The company does not permit (the) distribution of modified materials, is fine because "(the) distribution of modified materials" is a noun phrase functioning as direct object. – BillJ Aug 03 '16 at 11:39
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    That's not a good answer, it's not "an exact duplicate", and it doesn't explain anything. It certainly shouldn't be given as The correct answer for anything. The reason why *The company does not permit to distribute the modified materials is ungrammatical is that permit is bitransitive with an infinitive complement, and does not allow an indefinite subject to be deleted with an infinitive, the way it does with a gerund: They don't permit distributing modified materials to customers is fine. Memorizing long lists linked together tenuously simply leads to more confusion. – John Lawler Aug 03 '16 at 13:37

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