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What would be the correct form of the verb in this sentence? They all have a noun clause a the subject followed by to be.

What you can do is playing with them.

What you can do is to play with them.

What you can do is play with them.

I always thought the first two are grammatical as it stands as a noun (object of the sentence), so it should be a gerund or infinitive. But recently I have encountered some instances of the third case. I also looked some similar structures up on corpus and found similar instances:

What you can do is take seeds from the crop that the seeds grew and then use them. (independent.co.uk)

What you can do is assess the risks and hazards and set up ways of reducing risk. (guardian.co.uk)

If the third one, using bare infinitive, is syntactically correct, how do you justify it? Is it considered an adjective of sorts here?

Shahroq
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    The subject, "what you can do" is not a clause but a noun phrase in a 'fused' relative construction. The non-finite play clause is in predicative complement function. Where the subject NP contains do in a relative clause, both a to infinitival and a bare one are possible, thus your 2nd and 3rd examples are both fine. Gerund-participial (ing) clauses can function as predicative complements, but not where the subject is a relative construction. Your first example is thus ungrammatical. – BillJ Apr 07 '22 at 08:48
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    I'd compare your examples to What you can do is this:* play with them, peel them, then chop and fry.* – Yosef Baskin Apr 07 '22 at 12:59

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