Thank you SevenDays.
What about in a context like this:
I prefer HER to drive, because HE is too scatterbrained.
Would that use be incorrect as well??
Hello
Thanks for including a sentence; it helps to think about this more clearly. Is it incorrect? Well, when it comes to grammar, some things are not black and white. Traditional grammar wouldn't recognize "her" as the direct object of "prefer" because "her" is the subject of "to drive;" that is, "her"' can't perform two syntactic functions (
object and
subject). Yet some grammars (such as
transformational or
generative) would argue that the object of "prefer" is "her to drive" (all of that, not just "her"). This is known as a
sentential object because the object is, in fact, a sentence; it has a subject ("her") and a predicate ("to drive"). Others prefer the term
atypical object. If you agree with the concepts of
sentential object and
atypical object, then
I prefer her to drive,
because he is too scatterbrained is fine.
Prefer usually refers to a preferance, a choice, but, in this case, you would also argue that this sentence doesn't state a
syntactic preferance (although there is a
semantic choice: "her" over "him"). Syntactically,
because he is too scatterbrained functions as an
adjunct (it simply presents additional information) to the main clause
I prefer her to drive.
In you opt for a more traditional approach to grammar, then this sentence would make you rather unhappy. You would likely go with
I prefer that she drive/I prefer that she drives/I prefer that she should drive, because he is too scatterbrained.
Hope I'm not confusing you...
Cheers