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"She demanded the house should be sold", "She demanded the house be sold", "She demanded that the house to be sold". Is there a difference between the sentences?

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exRanger profile picture exRangerJanuary 2019
They are very close in meaning, really only thing separating sentences #1 and #2 is the "conditional nuance", ie, the word "should", which makes Sentence #1 a bit "less forceful" than Sentence #2, which is completely in the "imperative" condition. Both, grammatically, are correct.
Your thirs sentence (Sentence #3) is grammatically incorrect because it is in the "suboridinate clause" condition and thus the verb "to be" need not include the word "to". The best wording for sentence #3:
"She demanded that the house be sold."

By the way, sentences #1 and #2 would also benefit by the insertion of the word "that" immediately following the word "demanded", but it is not critical that it be inserted, but it would make those sentences smoother.
"She demanded
Weylin profile picture WeylinFebruary 2019

1 She demanded that the house should be sold.
There are plenty of instance of "demanded" with "should" in the British National Corpus, however all but one of them include "that".

2 She demanded the house be sold.
This is fine. Also it's more common to include "that" than to omit it. Note that the use of the subjunctive is quite formal.

3 She demanded that the house to be sold
This isn't grammatical. You can use an infinitve after "demanded", but only when the subject doesn't change.

Nasie profile picture NasieJanuary 2019
Are the 3 sentences grammatically correct? Thanks for your replyes!
  • ian_megill profile picture ian_megillFebruary 2019
    I would have said only the second sentence was correct... :[
    In the first sentence, "decided" would have been okay for me, e.g. "She decided that the house should be sold", but to me the "demanded" already implies an obligation even stronger than the "should", so the first sentence sounds strange to me.