grammaticality - Why is "Mary told the cake to be cut by John" ungrammatical?

Mary told the cake to be cut by John.

A textbook says that this example is ungrammatical, but it seems to make sense to me: where does the sentence have its fault?

Answer

This is a grammatical sentence, but it would be very unusual for anyone to say it because Mary is telling the cake, an inanimate object, to do something (have John cut it). It would make more sense to say:

Mary told John to cut the cake.

The main difference is to whom or what Mary is speaking. In the example in the question, she is speaking to the cake. In the example in this answer, she is speaking to John.