Hi! This may seem very obvious to a lot of you, but I’m confused.
I’ve been teaching Reported Speech and Embedded Questions and Commands, and I came across three sentences that I’m at a loss to explain:
My director wants this report immediately. He demanded that it be ready by 5:00 p.m.
Jill didn’t want to go to the car show. Her husband insisted that she come with him.
Did he tell you where to put the report when you finish?
Can someone please give me the grammatical explanation for why the bolded words are conjugated the way they are.
It looks to me that the first two are just missing the modal verb, which is why they are are in the infinitive form with no ‘to’ (modal + bare infinitive). Missing it out is just a writing style. The first is passive as well.
My director wants this report immediately. He demanded that it b[/b] be ready by 5:00 p.m.
Jill didn’t want to go to the car show. Her husband insisted that she b[/b] come with him.
Did he tell you where to put the report when you finish?
I think the last one is a noun clause. But anyway, some verbs are followed by gerund, e.g.
I don’t mind seeing that film.
Some by infinitive:
I want to go to Spain.
Told is a verb followed by infinitive, so I think that is the reason you have ‘to put’.
I’m not sure that there is any specific connection to the fact that it is reported speech, but maybe I’m wrong.