Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Privateer]

I've been teaching for quite a while but there is still so much about grammar I don't know (I think because you end up teaching mostly basic stuff). Case in point:

"I saw a man walk by."

My student kept saying "I saw a man walked by" and I couldn't explain why that was wrong.

It's a perfectly ordinary English sentence but I don't even know the correct grammatical term for the way 'walk by' is attached to the main clause here. It's not a relative clause ('a man who walked by') or an adjective clause ('a man walking by'). Is it a bare infinitive? It's not like the infinitive in, say, "I read a book to pass the time". So what is it?

Can anyone help?

[plus99]

its surprising that no one would respond to a thread called "grammar."


i think the issue is that the kid is right. i dont see a problem with the sentence, but im also drunk and a musician. i think plenty of decent writers would say that sentence is fine. there should be more posts like this.

[plus99]

wait, sorry. it should be "walk by."

[plus99]

yeah "by" is probably a dangling "thing" of some kind. i think its a preposition and not a participle. i doubt theres much of a demographic on this site for this conversation.

[Privateer]

^ You're drunk or else perhaps my original post isn't clear enough.

"I saw a man walk by" is right.

"I saw a man walked by" is wrong.

But how to explain why to a student?

[plus99]

i thought it said walk by, which i think would still be technically but not poetically wrong.

[plus99]

say its a dangling preposition. hail to the drunk.

[plus99]

nice picture, btw. lets see if the others try to turn this thread into something.

[bacasper]

With verbs of sensation (see, hear, feel), the correct form is

Subject + see + object + verb (simple form)

where verb (simple form) is the infinitive minus the "to."

So "walked by" is incorrect because it is not simple form.

I have no idea if that is the proper explanation, I just made it up but I think it's right. Where's Woland?

The "by" is just a red herring here, part of the phrasal verb, "to walk by."

Of course, if your student was saying, "I saw. A man walked by." that would be correct.

[Dome Vans]

To me that sounds wrong the more I say it. It's not correct.

"I saw a man, he walked by." Is more correct. (Past Simple)
"I saw a man walking by......" (Past continuous)
"I saw a man walk by" (Past simple)

Putting it into context is good way to explain it.

When is was sitting on the bench, I saw a man a man walk by.
When I was doing my washing, I saw a man walking by.
Yesterday I saw a man walk by, when the car stopped at the lights.

I can't find anything for "I saw a man walked by" It just doesn't work. Unless you put 'he' in front of walked, even then it'd need a comma.

To me, you can't have 'saw' and 'walked' in the same sentence. Two past tenses. It's just incorrect.

Sorry I can't help more privateer. It's bad that simple grammar, most of the time, never crops up while teaching in Korea.

[I-am-me]

I think it really depends on where the man was walking to as he walked by!

[Chris Kwon]

Sounds ok to me and makes perfect sense, but the rule is you aren't suppose to end a sentence with a preposition if I remember correctly. In everyday talk however, it seems ending in prepositions sounds better.

[plus99]

right j kwon thanks for the contribution

[littlelisa]

Ok, it's very easy to explain.

The past is already there in saw. It already puts you into the past. I saw a man... you're already there. Adding walk in the past also (walked) makes TWO instances of past. We already get that it's the past. It's redundant, and therefore wrong. Back in the past, when you saw the man, he was walking by in the present. So it's either I saw a man walk by, or I saw a man walking by, unless you want to add in another subject somewhere to keep the verb past tense.

The same reason why you don't say "I was danced".

[littlelisa]