4

I would like to know when we use "to" before the second verb (in this case communicate) in the following sentence.

Sir Percy Grigg, a high Treasury official who knew both well, described how “they seemed to understand each other and to communicate without having to exchange more than a few monosyllables."

Is it gramatically correct to drop "to" and present the sentence this way?

Sir Percy Grigg, a high Treasury official who knew both well, described how “they seemed to understand each other and communicate without having to exchange more than a few monosyllables".

Andrew Leach
  • 101,901
Alexander
  • 41
  • You have changed the infinitive to the wrong tense: "... and communicate*d* ... " – Weather Vane Jul 16 '22 at 10:23
  • 1
    The "to" you're wondering about is totally optional. You get to decide whether to include or omit. You can read it out loud and see which one appeals to you more, for example. There's no rule (assuming the sentence has the parallelism that yours does). – aparente001 Jul 17 '22 at 01:12

3 Answers3

13

There are three to's in this sentence:

  • They seemed to understand each other
    and to communicate without
    having to exchange more than a few monosyllables.

And the question is about deleting the second to:

  • _They seemed to understand each other
    and ___ communicate without
    having to exchange more than a few monosyllables.

The answer is yes, you can delete the second to, because the two infinitives to understand and to communicate are joined by a conjunction and. That makes Conjunction Reduction possible, and it will delete the repeated to in the second conjunct. The rule does not only apply to infinitive complementizers; it's very general.

John Lawler
  • 107,887
3

I think there is a subtle difference in meaning. Without the second "to", the phrase beginning with "without" modifies both "understand" and "communicate". With "to" present, that phrase only applies to "communicate".

prl
  • 136
  • I thought the same. But I'm no linguist, and could be mistaken; is there any reference for this? – gidds Jul 17 '22 at 15:18
2

Sir Percy Grigg, a high Treasury official who knew both well, described how they seemed to [understand each other] [and communicate] without having to exchange more than a few monosyllables.

Yes, the second coordinator "to" can be omitted as shown with no change of meaning. The first coordinator "to" acts as a marker for the whole coordination.

The difference is purely grammatical: the two bracketed elements form a coordination of head VPs within the overall coordination.

BillJ
  • 12,832