My friend is closing a letter with: “I look forward to hear from you.”
I corrected her and said she should write: “I look forward to hearing from you.” She says that after “to” the infinitive form of the verb should follow.
Can someone just quickly let us know who’s right?
No such thing as a simple grammar question on this board. Someone will be along to cite the rule, but the sentence as written sounds awkward and as if it was written by a non-native English speaker. Common usage is as important as grammar, in some instances.
You are correct. The infinitive form has no tense, but tense is necessary in that salutation. So “I look forward to hearing from you” is the right way to say it.
While infinitives are preceded by “to”, the mere existence of a “to” does not mean that the infinitive must follow. Tense is necessary because the “hearing” takes place in the future.
The word “hear” is a verb and cannot be the object of the preposition “to”. The gerund, or “verbal noun”, “hearing” is the proper word (noun) to be used as the object of the preposition.
Ref. (not quoted) Birk & Birk, “Understanding and Using English,” New York, 1947.
“Look forward to” is a phrasal verb. The “to” is not the part of an infinitive. “Hearing” is the correct answer.
Thanks a lot guys, and thanks for the cite Ignatz.
Here’s a somewhat artificial but, hopefully, understandable example:
The verb “to look forward to” is different than “to look forward.” If you use the phrase “to look forward” literally, as in, to look ahead of you, then the infinitive would be a correct construction:
I look forward to see where I’m going. I look backward to see where I’ve been.
“Looking forward to,” is a phrasal verb that needs to be taken as a whole and takes a noun or noun phrase as its object.
I look forward to seeing you.
You could convolute a sentence where “I look forward to see you” would be grammatical and sensical (if not a bit artificial) . For example, “Since you were trailing me, I had to look backward to see you. Now, I look forward to see you.”
“to hear” is the infinitive form of the verb. English is peculiar in that the infinitive is represented by two words; it functions as one.
In this case “to” is not connected to “hear” to form an infinitive. ie, it’s not "look forward [to hear] from you. You wouldn’t say “I look forward dinner”, would you? No, you need the preposition “to”: “I look forward to dinner”. So you need a noun to server as the object of the preposition, and “hearing”, the gerund form of “to hear” works nicely: “I look forward to hearing from you.”
Contrast with “I want dinner” / “I want to hear from you”.