Saturday, December 10, 2016

grammaticality - Is it necessary to use "to" multiple times in this context?



This is the sentence:





Entrepreneurial leadership is the leader’s ability to influence others, to nurture the culture, to manage resources, and to develop a competitive behavior to seek opportunities and advantages (Ireland et al., 2003).




In my language, we don't repeat the equivalent of "to" multiple times and it's correct to use it just once (before the first verb).



So I was wondering, would the following sentence be grammatically correct:




Entrepreneurial leadership is the leader’s ability to influence others, nurture the culture, manage resources, and develop a competitive behavior to seek opportunities and advantages (Ireland et al., 2003).





Or is it necessary to use "to" before each verb?


Answer



In your sentence, all the additional "to" seem redundant. But there are some instances where adding additional "to" may be necessary.
For example, in legal documents, when we are empowering someone to do certain acts, we use "to" after every comma to indicate that now a new power is being listed after the comma. Same goes for setting out duties. This is also found in laws.



Now, in this context, you would use additional "to" if you are not defining the entrepreneurial leadership but writing an instruction or expectation for someone to be hired as an entrepreneurial leader.


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