“I promise you to help you.”
Is it wrong?
Please comment.
2.
I found this sentence - “She’s promised to do all she can to help.”
in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.
Is it correct?
#1 is wrong (except in the very unusual interpretation “I promise you in order to help you”). You can say “I promise to help you”.
#2 is correct.
“I request you to help him.” is OK.
In the same pattern I can’t say: “I promise you to help him.”
But I can say: “I promise you that I will help him.”
Is it OK?
2.
I can do it. OK
But I can’t say: “I can to do it”
I heard after the model verb - can, ‘to’ will not come.
I believe “She’s promised to do all she can help.” is OK.
How can we add ‘to’ after ‘can’ in that sentence?
Please explain.
Thanks.
1a) “I request you to help him” – feels awkward to me. Other verbs, such as “ask”, “urge”, “implore”, etc., are OK in this pattern, however.
1b) “I promise you to help him” – wrong (except in the very unusual interpretation that “to” means “in order to”)
1c) “I promise you that I will help him” – OK
2a) “I can do it” – OK
2b) “I can to do it” – wrong
2c) “She’s promised to do all she can help” – wrong
2d) “She’s promised to do all she can to help” – OK
2c/2d are grammatically different from 2a/2b. 2c doesn’t work because “she can help”, which is correct by itself, cannot be a unit of meaning in that sentence. Instead, the unit of meaning is “She’s promised to do all she can”. In 2d this is followed by “to help”, where “to” means “in order to”.