Please, can you explain the grammar of this sentence to me?
"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is a 1957 folk song written by British political singer/songwriter Ewan MacColl for Peggy Seeger, who was later to become his wife.

"who was later to become his wife" - why did author use this grammatical constraction? If I say "who later become his wife", would it be the same or this phrase has some special nuance of meaning? And if it does, what is it?

Hope, I word my question clear enough. :-/

Question

Please, can you explain the grammar of this sentence to me?
"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is a 1957 folk song written by British political singer/songwriter Ewan MacColl for Peggy Seeger, who was later to become his wife.

"who was later to become his wife" - why did author use this grammatical constraction? If I say "who later become his wife", would it be the same or this phrase has some special nuance of meaning? And if it does, what is it?

Hope, I word my question clear enough. :-/

Answer

It would be possible to write "who later became his wife". The particular construction "was later to become his wife" is just a manner of communicating the notion of an instant in time when the song was written.

Answer

Hi there! "who was later to become his wife" is a relative dependent clause allowing the reader to understand that this Peggy married him later on in his life. If you were to say "who later become his wife" the sentence becomes unclear.
1.  Become (in the first sentence) is being used as part of an infinitive phrase. It gives the meaning that something IS to happen, and in this reference needs "to" in front of it.

2.  If you drop the verb "was" and "to", then BECOME can change to BECAME and make perfect sense. 
I hope this helps without going into a lot of detail.

Answers · 4

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