a grammar question : to be in adjective clause [closed]

Please explain the grammar of this sentence:

She was the first woman to be nominated for the national prize.

Why do we use "to be" here? And is it necessary?

In English, as in many European languages, the infinitive can be used to express expectation when it modifies an adjective or noun. The preposition/particle to is used to connect the infinitive with the noun or adjective.

The work was to be done by her mother.

This means "it was expected that her mother would do the work". The phrase to be done by her mother modifies the work, it tells us that there is the expectation of a certain action and that the noun phrase the work is the 'subject' of the action. (That is, the noun phrase performs the semantic role that is normally performed by the subject of the verb/predicate used in this infinitive phrase.)

She is the first woman to be nominated for the national prize.

This should mean: "it is expected that someone will nominate the first woman for the national prize, and she is that first woman." However, the sense of expectation from the infinitive is sometimes weakened, as in this example; the sentence means almost the same thing as she is the first woman (who was) nominated for the national prize. As you see, the infinitive was almost devoid of meaning here. But perhaps this can still be explained away as a kind of implicit expectation: I'm pondering it.

In the sentence you quote to be is optional. It would make just as much grammatical sense if you left it out.

Whichever of those two wordings that you use, idiomatically it describes a past event. That is determined by the second word of the sentence - was. Change that to will be and the to be becomes more likely to be included, and the whole indicates something that is going to happen in the (near) future.