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What's the grammatical function of not and to in this sentence?

It is legitimate for Slovenia not to allow the merger.

How do I analyse the verb phrase? Allow is the headword, but what are not and to?

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2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

"to" is part of the "to allow" construction, the infinitive of the verb. The "not" simply negates (i.e. says "do the opposite") to this.

It would be equivalent to say this:

It is legitimate for Slovenia to prohibit the merger. It is legitimate for Slovenia to disallow the merger.

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up vote 0 down vote

to is a preposition. However, in this case to simply acts as a marker of the infinitive verb to allow.

not is usually considered an adverb. In this case it negates the infinitive to allow.

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I respectfully disagree with a part of your first statement: "'to' is a preposition." Here, "to" is an infinitive marker, but not a preposition. Consider "All eyes look to Slovenia to merge." The first "to" is a preposition and could be replaced with other prepositions "toward," "for" or "at." The second "to" is used to mark the infinitive, and therefore could not be replaced with a preposition. – rajah9 Apr 20 '11 at 18:56

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