Could you please analyze this sentence for me? I saw a sentence on BBC which is: What they do when they are in a new territory is explore it in a very systematic way. I wonder if there is any word b

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Wendy

Could you please analyze this sentence for me? I saw a sentence on BBC which is: What they do when they are in a new territory is explore it in a very systematic way. I wonder if there is any word be omited? And if the complete sentence should be: What they do when they are in a new territory is TO explore it in a very systematic way. Could you please analyze the original sentence for me? Thanks in advance for your answer.

Sep 7, 2017 2:54 PM

Answers · 10

Hi, I just wanted to add that the original sentence without 'TO' sounds more natural to me.. it might be a UK thing?! Other examples.. What they do when they are busy is cut corners. What she needs to do is start listening. Including 'to' wouldn't sound 'wrong', but my gut feeling is that maybe in the UK we sometimes drop the 'to'.

September 7, 2017

EDITED: see full explanation below. Here's the sentence analysis: "What they do when they are in a new territory..." = subject (a noun clause) "...is..." = verb "... explore it in a very systematic way." = subject complement (gives us more information about the subject.)

September 7, 2017

While the first sentence is technically correct, your version is more clear. The "to" is definitely helpful. I have to correct SOMETHING ; -) and the only error is see is: I wonder if there is any word be omitted? I wonder if there was a word omitted.

September 7, 2017

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