Omitting to be from TO complements

The sequence to be can be omitted from some Judgement TO and from some Modal (FOR) TO complements. The conditions for this omission are quite different in the two cases.

For Judgement TO, a limited number of verbs may omit both the to and a copula be which begins the predicate when the predicate is a typical semantic accompaniment for the verb.

Most ATTENTION and SPEAKING verbs must retain the to be, e.g. nothing can be dropped from She saw/reported/acknowledged him to be stupid/ wrong/the decision-maker. Declare and proclaim may omit to be when they are used in a performative sense, with a predicate that is prototypical for that verb, e.g. The Council of Barons proclaimed Alfred (to be) King, The doctor declared him (to be) dead on arrival, The judge declared Mary (to be) the winner. Note, though, that to be could scarcely be omitted from non-prototypical sentences involving these verbs, e.g. not from They proclaimed/declared him to be clever.

The verbs think, consider and imagine, from the THINKING type, may omit to be from a Judgement TO complement that makes a straightforward assertion concerning a quality or state, where this is shown by an adjective or by a participial form of a verb, e.g. I thought him (to be) stupid/wrong/ healthy/dead/vanquished. To be may not be omitted from other kinds of Judgement to complement with these verbs, e.g. not from I thought him to be getting healthier each day.

Find and prove may omit to be when the Judgement TO complement relates to some official or objective judgement, e.g. find guilty, prove wrong; but to be would be likely to be retained in a sentence like We found him to be very unsure of himself.To be can be omitted after believe with the adjective dead (e.g. He was believed (to be) dead), a common collocation; nothing is likely to be omitted from He is believed to be clever/the fastest gun in the West. Verbs like know and assume appear never to omit to be from a Judgement to complement, perhaps because there is no particular kind of predicate that could be considered prototypical for these verbs.

Turning now to Modal (FOR) TO complements, we discussed how make and let can omit be or to be, and the causative sense of have must omit be; the be here can be copula or passive or imperfective. A sentence with no (to) be, such as I made John interested in the puzzle, implies that I did something as a result of which he became spontaneously interested. In contrast, I made John be interested in the puzzle carries a more direct meaning—I influenced John to force himself to be interested in it.

To be may also be omitted from a Modal (FOR) TO complement after a small group of verbs which includes order, wish, want, need and require. This happens when the complement clause subject is not the controller of the activity (and so it would not be appropriate for to to be included). Typically, the complement clause will be in the passive, with an inanimate NP as derived passive subject, e.g. He ordered the floors (to be) cleaned, I want this picture (to be) restored, I need my bandages (to be) changed. Note that to be must be included when the main clause is passivized, e.g. The floors were ordered to be cleaned.

There is surface similarity to a construction where an object NP is followed by a ‘resulting state’ adjective, e.g. She shot him dead, I swept it clean. As it was pointed out, the two constructions are in fact quite different. Shoot dead is simply a verb-plus-adjective construction—no to be enters in the passive, for instance (He was shot dead, not *He was shot to be dead), whereas cleaned in I ordered it cleaned is a reduced clause—other clause constituents can be included with it (e.g. I ordered it (to be) cleaned by an expert).

In summary, to be can be omitted from a Judgement TO clause when the main clause verb and the adjective from the predicate of the complement clause typically belong together (e.g. declare X dead, proclaim X King, find X guilty). With Modal (FOR) TO clauses a (to) be can be omitted if the main clause subject does not directly ‘control’ the complement clause subject in doing something. And whereas only copula be may be omitted from a Judgement TO clause, any of the three varieties of be—copula, passive and imperfective—may be omitted from a Modal (FOR) TO clause.