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alicantik · Joined: 05 Dec 2004 Posts: 23 Location: Brisbane

Look at this sentence:

"The man saw them break into the bank."

Now put it in the passive:

"They were seen breaking into the bank."

Why can't you say," They were seen to break into the bank'?

Alicantik Question

dyak · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 630

Just a guess, a thought, an initial idea...

The verb 'see' can't be followed by an infinitive, only an -ing form and it needs an object?

They were seen (by a man) breaking into the bank.

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

"It was seen to be..." followed by an adjective. Doesn't apply to your bank break in, though.

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

"See to" can be a phrasal verb, like 'attend to'.

"See to it that no one ever finds the WMD in Iraq," said the president.

dyak · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 630

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

let's change 'see' tio hear becasue 'he was seen to do something' is grammatical, though possibly with a special meaning.

Frist we need to note that there is a difference between
The man heard them break into the bank
and
The man heard them breaking into the bank

The difference is subtle but the first implies that the whole of the action was witnessed, whilst in the second case the action may only have been paritially witnessed.
Note that

*I heard them to break into the bank
is ungrammatical.

Now the second sentence can be changed to passive
They were heard breaking into the bank
but the first cannot
*They were heard break into the bank.

The reason I believe is that participial phrases are not closely bonded to the element of the clause they modify. On the other hand base forms fo the verb are because the question of position affects the syntax so much.

valley_girl · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 5:50 pm Post subject:

dyak · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 630

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

valley_girl · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 1:39 pm Post subject:

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

I've just checked with the concordance based in the British National Corpus that Brigham Young University graciously provide online.

Seen + to infinitive occurs 1357 times.
Seen + -ing occurs 427 times.

That is to say the form you consider to be 'plain poor usage' of English is three times as common as the form you consider to be the only correct one.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 5:45 pm Post subject:

dyak · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 630

I think he meant 'them' not 'her'. The phrase in question was,

He saw them breaking into the bank.

valley_girl suggested breaking into the bank was a gerund phrase but as Stephen pointed out, if it's a gerund phrase you can substitute it with a noun or 'it'. Here, you can't.

I think... Confused

fluffyhamster · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 6:44 pm Post subject:

I seeee. Hmm...I told you I was only half-following this thread! Wink

fluffyhamster · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 6:46 pm Post subject:

He saw them burglars breaking into the bank? Surprised