EnglishClub ESL Forums

Hello,

Ive currently read the following sentence:

"In order for them to be happy, you must be miserable with no power, no freedom and no hope."

And now I'm asking myself if that sentence is correct. "You" is the subject of the sentence. "must be" is the verb. "miserable with no power, no freedom and no hope" is the subject complement. And now we have "In order for them to be happy". I think its an adjunct. An adjunct can be a word, phrase or clause. In this case, it's a phrase. My problem is that "in order for them to be happy" contains "to be happy" referring to the subject of the sentence. Why is that correct? Which grammar construct is that?

The sentence is correct as written. The referent of 'happy' here is the object of the preposition 'for' (here 'them') and bears no relation to the sentence subject. (Cf. 'In order to be happy' - with no for-phrase - which would relate to the subject.)