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Qinella
Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Location: the crib
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 Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 9:44 pm Post subject: Grammar question |
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Can anyone help me out with this? A Korean teacher here had a question about the following sentence and I can't figure it out.
Robert did not see his mother smile.
Why isn't it smiles, as in he/she/it smiles?
Thanks in advance,
Qinella |
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visviva
Joined: 03 Feb 2003
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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Because "smile" is governed by "see," which in turn is governed by "did." One might as well ask why we say "Robert did not see" instead of "Robert did not saw."
Another way to think about it: "smile" here is the bare infinitive, which does not conjugate. It's the bare infinitive because that is what "see" takes. So do some other verbs of perception, for example: "Robert did not hear his mother laugh." They can also take the progressive: an almost-equivalent sentence would be "Robert did not see his mother smiling."
And come to think of it, the sentence is in the past tense, so even if smile was conjugated, it would be "smiled." But that would be OK only if we put a conjunction such as "that" before the second clause, i.e. "Robert did not see that his mother smiled" (awkward but legal). |
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Qinella
Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Location: the crib
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| Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 4:17 am Post subject: |
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| Thanks Visviva, that was very helpful! |
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globalnomad
Joined: 06 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 10:21 am Post subject: |
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Very nice visavi...except... it's not the progressive, which is a verb tense and must be accompanied by the "be" verb, it's the gerund.
"Robert did not see his mother smiling."
"smiling" is the gerund
Robert is smiling.
"is smiling" is the progressive. |
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the saint
Joined: 09 Dec 2003
Location: not there yet...
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| Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 12:45 pm Post subject: |
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| globalnomad wrote: |
Very nice visavi...except... it's not the progressive, which is a verb tense and must be accompanied by the "be" verb, it's the gerund.
"Robert did not see his mother smiling."
"smiling" is the gerund
Robert is smiling.
"is smiling" is the progressive. |
Very nice globalnomad... except... progressive is not a verb tense, it's a verb aspect.
present is the verb tense in your example
to the OP
In terms of Subject Verb and Object the sentence runs like this
S = Robert
V = see (negative past)
O = his mother smile
As global pointed out, conjugation occurs on the verb. Clearly, smile is not the verb in the sentence but rather part of the object. As a result it isn't conjugated but, again, as global pointed out, takes the bare infinitive form or, a more helpful term for students, the dictionary form.
Why it takes the bare infinitive form and what the structure of the O is is another interesting question. The question your student could well have asked is why it is not his mother's smile?
Anyone care to comment on that? |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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Robert did not see his mother smile.
Robert did not see his mother's smile.
For the poster who gave the second sentence:
'smile' in that sentence is a noun, not a verb. |
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DirtySanchez
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Location: Neither here nor there
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| Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 6:58 pm Post subject: |
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| the saint wrote: |
Why it takes the bare infinitive form and what the structure of the O is is another interesting question. The question your student could well have asked is why it is not his mother's smile?
Anyone care to comment on that? |
Hey, I'm anyone!
If we consider pragmatics, or "philosophy of language", what we have here are two very different statements.
"Robert did not see his mother smile" presupposes that robert's mother did in fact smile, and that robert simply did not see it.
"Robert did not see his mother's smile" does not presuppose that she smiled, but simply that robert failed to see a smile, whether it happened or not. therefore, with the latter statement, it is possible that robert's mother did not smile at all.
Anyone care to comment on THAT? |
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MixtecaMike
Joined: 24 Nov 2003
Location: 3rd Largest Train Station in Korea
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| Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 7:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
"Robert did not see his mother smile" presupposes that robert's mother did in fact smile, and that robert simply did not see it.
"Robert did not see his mother's smile" does not presuppose that she smiled, but simply that robert failed to see a smile, whether it happened or not. therefore, with the latter statement, it is possible that robert's mother did not smile at all. |
Maybe the other way around.
Robert did not see his mother smile, maybe she did and he he didn't see it, maybe she didn't.
Robert did not see his mother's smile suggests there was a smile, but Bob missed it. |
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the saint
Joined: 09 Dec 2003
Location: not there yet...
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| Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 8:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
For the poster who gave the second sentence:
'smile' in that sentence is a noun, not a verb. |
Like er yeah and...  |
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desultude
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Location: Dangling my toes in the Persian Gulf
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| Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 10:16 pm Post subject: |
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| the saint wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
For the poster who gave the second sentence:
'smile' in that sentence is a noun, not a verb. |
Like er yeah and... |
Yeah? In the first sentence we have the bare infinitive of the verb- "smile", in the second, we have "smile" as a noun- his mother's smile- smile being the expression on her face, not the act of making the expression. |
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Qinella
Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Location: the crib
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| Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 8:30 am Post subject: |
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| the saint wrote: |
| globalnomad wrote: |
Very nice visavi...except... it's not the progressive, which is a verb tense and must be accompanied by the "be" verb, it's the gerund.
"Robert did not see his mother smiling."
"smiling" is the gerund
Robert is smiling.
"is smiling" is the progressive. |
Very nice globalnomad... except... progressive is not a verb tense, it's a verb aspect.
present is the verb tense in your example
to the OP
In terms of Subject Verb and Object the sentence runs like this
S = Robert
V = see (negative past)
O = his mother smile
As global pointed out, conjugation occurs on the verb. Clearly, smile is not the verb in the sentence but rather part of the object. As a result it isn't conjugated but, again, as global pointed out, takes the bare infinitive form or, a more helpful term for students, the dictionary form.
Why it takes the bare infinitive form and what the structure of the O is is another interesting question. The question your student could well have asked is why it is not his mother's smile?
Anyone care to comment on that? |
Yes yes, you must break a sentence down into its phrasal components. For some reason I just could not do it with that sentence - must have been losing my mind!
Thanks again for the help. |
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the saint
Joined: 09 Dec 2003
Location: not there yet...
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| Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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| desultude wrote: |
| the saint wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
For the poster who gave the second sentence:
'smile' in that sentence is a noun, not a verb. |
Like er yeah and... |
Yeah? In the first sentence we have the bare infinitive of the verb- "smile", in the second, we have "smile" as a noun- his mother's smile- smile being the expression on her face, not the act of making the expression. |
Like er yeah and... what is the point the two of you are trying to make exactly? You've missed mine completely - probably my presumptuous fault.
The student asked quite an insightful question i.e. why it isn't
Robert didn't see his mother smiled
what I would have expected the student to say was why it isn't
Robert didn't see his mother's smile
precisely because students don't usually spot smile as a bare infinitive but as a noun. I'm glad to know you also know that smile can be a noun 
What I asked for comments on was how you would answer the student who asked the second question.
Get it now?
In actual fact Robert didn't see his mother smiled is perfectly acceptable with an independent clause and the relative pronoun omitted. |
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desultude
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Location: Dangling my toes in the Persian Gulf
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| Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 11:13 pm Post subject: |
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| the saint wrote: |
| desultude wrote: |
| the saint wrote: |
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
For the poster who gave the second sentence:
'smile' in that sentence is a noun, not a verb. |
Like er yeah and... |
Yeah? In the first sentence we have the bare infinitive of the verb- "smile", in the second, we have "smile" as a noun- his mother's smile- smile being the expression on her face, not the act of making the expression. |
Like er yeah and... what is the point the two of you are trying to make exactly? You've missed mine completely - probably my presumptuous fault.
The student asked quite an insightful question i.e. why it isn't
Robert didn't see his mother smiled
what I would have expected the student to say was why it isn't
Robert didn't see his mother's smile
precisely because students don't usually spot smile as a bare infinitive but as a noun. I'm glad to know you also know that smile can be a noun
What I asked for comments on was how you would answer the student who asked the second question.
Get it now?
In actual fact Robert didn't see his mother smiled is perfectly acceptable with an independent clause and the relative pronoun omitted. |
Umm, I got your point, I was responding to Ya Ta, which is why I quoted him. |
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Kwangjuchicken
Joined: 01 Sep 2003
Location: I was abducted by aliens on my way to Korea and forced to be an EFL teacher on this crazy planet.
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 1:12 am Post subject: |
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I think some of you have been in Korea too long. You are going on and on about a grammar point like a Korean English teacher. And, it is not ever really a grammar point. It is a question of usage, and is a fixed expression. One sees someone do/doing something.
Un point. C'est tout.
Makes me thing of the EBS TOEIC show the other day. Thirty minutes of non stop talking in Korean about "the".  |
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