[Xkimo]

Hi, I have a question with regards to using or not using 'to' with the word 'access'.

1. We can gain access to something.
2. I want access to that database.
3. How do I access this website?
4. I don't know how to access that page, do you?

The question is: Why doesn't sentence no.3 have 'to' in it? When do we use 'to' with access?

Thank you!

[susan53]

If you look at the sentences you'll see that 1 and 2 use access as a noun - and it's followed by to.

In sentences 3 and 4 access is a verb, and to is not used.

[bread_baker]

If you have to + a verb, you have an infinitive.
Example of an infinitive: She loves to eat Chinese food. (to eat = infinitive)

This is correct:
I want to access that database. (Here you have access used in the infinitive form).
In the first post, #3 is grammatically correct, but it doesn't use the infinitive form.
Americans use infinitives all the time!

[susan53]

I think there's confusion here over which "to" Xkimo was referring to. The infinitive form is just there eg in 4 because the sentence construction is "how to do something" - ie it needs an infinitive. It has nothing to do with the word access. The sentence would be the same with any verb eg : I don't know how to print this file. The same is true of bread baker's example - the infinitive is not dependent on the use of the word access but on the use of the verb want which is followed by the infinitive - compare I want to print this file.

However, the preposition in 1 and 2 which follows the noun is directly dependent on the word access. But it's only used with the noun - not the verb. So .. for sentence 3, you can use the verb and say : How do I access this website?

or the noun - in which case the preposition to is added : How do I gain access to this website?