Learn English – which one of these sentences is correct

grammar

Only one of the following sentences is grammatically correct. Which one is it?

A. He recommended her to continue her education.

B. He recommended she continues her education.

C. He recommended she continued her education.

D. He recommended she continue her education.

and please explain the reason why.

Best Answer

A's marked infinitive to continue is becoming acceptable in informal registers, on the analogy of told her to continue, but is generally deprecated in formal registers.

B's inflected finite form continues is accepted in BrE, at least in journalistic contexts, but the complementizer that is rarely omitted with this.

C's finite past form, continued, is not employed: recommended can only take a subsequent action as its complement.

D, with the 'mandative subjunctive' (uninflected base form of the verb) continue, is preferred in AmE and is returning to use in BrE.

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