which allows it to ban

Question

Epidemiologists are in control here, and they were the ones who convinced PM Andrej Babiš to seal the borders in an order issued on March 12. To do this, the cabinet used the crisis law, which allows it to ban the "entry, presence and movement of individuals in or on specified areas or territories."

Source: http://www.fsfinalword.com/?page=archive&show=1&day=2020-04-22

Can you please explain to me why the pronoun "it" is used in the second clause. It seems to be to me unnecessary. Would it be the version "crisis law, which allows to ban" wrong in terms of grammar?

Yes - allow needs an object, either allows it (the cabinet) to ban or allows the banning of. — Kate Bunting, Apr 23 '20 at 15:56

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 23 '20 at 16:02

In this sentence, "to ban the 'entry...'" is a to-infinitive phrase. Only certain verbs can be followed by a to-infinitive phrase. These are called catenative verbs.

Ex:

Agree is a catenative verb

They agree to ban it ✓

You can find lists of catenative verbs all over the internet. This one looks pretty useful: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_catenative_verbs#Followed_by_a_gerund

If you study that list, you'll notice that allow actually does appear. However, there's another problem. Some catenative verbs can be followed by to-infinitives, while others must be followed by gerunds. Allow is one of the latter; it must be followed by a gerund (or a noun or pronoun).

Ex:

They don't allow smoking in here ✓
They don't allow to smoke in here ❌

And the final complication, allow actually can be followed by a to-infinitive phrase, but only when allow is used passively.

Ex:

They aren't allowed to smoke in here ✓

So, the sentence could be rewritten to remove it: "The cabinet used the crisis law, which allows banning the 'entry...'" but this wouldn't be as natural.

You could also use the passive form of allow: "The cabinet used the crisis law, by which it is allowed to ban the 'entry...'" But in that case, we've just moved the "it" not removed it.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 23 '20 at 16:04

The "it" is necessary. It refers to the cabinet, of course. You could avoid the "it" by using another structure: "The cabinet used the crisis law, which allows banning the entry,...".
That would be a less specific statement, since it might be that the crisis law allows other entities than the cabinet to ban entry, etc.

The question has been discussed on ELL before:
ELL allows

and on English Language and Usage:
ELU grammatical complements for "allow"

which allows it to ban

2 Answers2