Subj : King, Sherlock Holmes and a verb ;)
To   : alexander koryagin
From : Ardith Hinton
Date : Fri Mar 02 2018 18:00:57

Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

AH>  How about "I'm glad to hear you say so, Mr. President?"

ak>  well, YOU say.  No "s".


             Right.



AH>  or "I'm glad to hear you, i.e. Alexander Koryagin, or
AH>  [him/her/it/them] say so?"

ak>  Ah!  There is a rule


             I hadn't heard of it... but I think you're onto something.  It's
obvious that "to hear" is an infinitive in the examples above.  What I wasn't
sure of was whether or not "say" is also an infinitive in this context.  Your
excerpt from Wiki settled the question AFAIC, and I'm delighted because I now
understand *why* I would say what I'd say the way I'd say it.  Thankyou!  :-)



ak>  So, "I saw/watched/heard/etc.  it happen."


             Or "I saw [him/her/it/them] break the window," for example.



ak>  (A similar meaning can be effected by using the
ak>  present participle instead:  "I saw/watched/heard/etc.
ak>  it happening." The difference is that the former
ak>  implies that the entirety of the event was perceived,
ak>  while the latter implies that part of the progress of
ak>  the event was perceived.)


             I saw a man running down the alley with a box under his arm just
after the alarm went off in one of the local stores.  This actually happened,
BTW.  I didn't see where he came from or where he went, but I could offer the
police a good description of him because I was only a few feet away....  :-))



ak>  There is an essential difference between the Russian
ak>  grammar and the English one. ;) The Russian Grammar
ak>  orders the Russians to speak in a certain way, but the
ak>  English Grammar just describes the way the people talk.


             During the 1960's some very influential linguists... including,
IIRC, Noam Chomsky... proclaimed that dictionaries & grammar texts should be
descriptive rather than prescriptive.  (I wouldn't be surprised to hear that
most if not all of these experts were native speakers of English, but at the
time I first became aware of such developments I was in university & my main
concern was about making sense of various people's ideas WRT how traditional
grammar could be improved upon.)  As a student in high school I had much the
same experience with language textbooks in general that you seem to have had
with sources of information about your own language.

             Nowadays, with a few minor changes, traditional grammar remains
the most widely accepted & understood method of explaining why we do what we
do.  I am familiar with it.  English/English dictionaries still use it.  And
when my buddies in Russia use it, we're on the same wave length.  If I'm not
quite sure about the names of verb tenses in English, AAMOF, I often find it
easier to consult them than to locate old textbooks from yesteryear.  OTOH I
supply information others may need in order to decide for themselves whether
to say xxx or yyy.  That is my preferred learning & teaching style, and most
of my recent English-language sources try to strike a happy medium too.  :-)



ak>  Maybe, here there is a rule:  you _can_ omit "to" when
ak>  to verb are connected with "and." For instance,

ak>  I'd like to drink and tell you a story.


             Sometimes.  FOWLER'S also lists that option.  As a co-ordinating
conjunction, "and" joins elements which are grammatically equal.  If you want
to use it to join two or more infinitives, that is perfectly acceptable.  The
second & subsequent infinitives are often bare infinitives... particularly in
colloquial speech.  They're still infinitives either way.  But as a matter of
style, it may be preferable *not* to use shortcuts in formal speech and/or in
other situations where they could render one's intentions less clear....  ;-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

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