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I've come across this sentence in a piece of technical documentation:
Disabling personal usage requires the user provision the device as a fully managed device.
In my opinion this sentence is grammatically correct, but I've gotten into a dispute with a co-worker why "to" isn't strictly needed before "provision" in this case.
Can anyone confirm that the original sentence is correct and if so, whether there's a specific grammar rule that says why?
Your sentence is technically correct; it uses the subjunctive form of the second verb (provision) — which is what we do with verbs that come after verbs such as advise, insist, propose, require, ask, recommend, suggest, demand, and more.
What’s throwing off your co-worker is the use of the “zero that” — where that is omitted. While you can usually omit it, keeping it can clear up the confusion here:
Disabling personal usage requires that the user provision the device as a fully managed device.
That said, I detect no difference in meaning if you forego the subjunctive add to instead:
Disabling personal usage requires the user to provision the device as a fully managed device.
Complex Catenative Construction
When a catenative verb has an object, the object usually comes between the catenative verb and second verb, creating a more complex construction, like this:
- I want him to study harder.
(Because this destroys the "verb chain", some linguists do not consider this construction to be catenative. We include it here because many linguists DO consider it to be catenative.)
The verb following a [catenative verb + object] can be in one of the following forms:
- (a) bare infinitive (eat)
- (b) to-infinitive (to eat)
- (c) -ing form (eating)
- (d) past participle (eaten)
Which form/s is/are available depends on the first verb. The following lists show those verbs allowing a bare infinitive, and those allowing a to-infinitive.
verb + object + infinitive
- (a) bare infinitive
feel, have, hear, help, let, make, notice, observe, see, smell, watch
- We heard you say [that] you loved her
- Will you help me wash the car?
- We didn't watch the sun set
.............
- (b) to-infinitive
allow, ask, assist, beg, bother, bribe, can bear, cause, challenge, charge, choose, command, compel, condemn, count on, dare, defy, depend on, direct, drive, empower, enable, encourage, entitle, expect, force, get, hate, help, impel, implore, incite, instruct, intend, invite, lead, leave, like, love, mean, need, oblige, order, persuade, prefer, press, rely on, remind, request, require, sentence, teach, tell, trouble, trust, urge, want, warn, wish
[and the following verbs, mostly with second verb to be]: assume, believe, consider, declare, discover, fancy, feel, find, imagine, judge, know, observe, presume, prove, report, represent, reveal, see, sow, suppose, think, understand
- Do they allow us to wear shoes? / [passive] Are we allowed to wear shoes?
- They told Sue to leave / [passive] Sue was told to leave
- We believed him to be honest
[ ... ]
[EnglishClub] [amended]
In complex catenations, require takes a to-infinitive, not a bare infinitive, after the NP:
...........................................
There is the possible alternative using a that-clause complement:
Though 'that' is often deletable from that-clauses
(He said [that] he will come)
I'd say that this is unacceptable in this case.
The "specific grammar rule" is simply that some verbs idiomatically take certain constructions.
You can...
But not "require [object] [finite verb]." Mind, other verbs could take that construction: "I demand you kneel."
But since "provision" as a verb is a fairly specialized usage, this sentence is already headed into the territory of being hard to follow, so why not rewrite along simpler lines as suggested by Yosef?
