Grammatical position

[Elvis]

what is the grammatical position of reading here
I see a man reading a book?

Thanks in advance for all....

[fluffyhamster]

Not sure what you mean by 'grammatical position' - part of speech? I'd say it's a participle i.e. part of a reduced/participial relative clause, the whole of which ('a man reading a book') functions as the object of 'I see...'.

[ouyang]

"reading" is a verbal object complement here. It's definitely a participle, and it can be either the present or past participle, as well as a bare infinitive, but it's not part of a relative clause. There is no subject. Notice that the accusative case would be used for any pronoun that acted as the agent of the action.

I saw him reading. I heard him snoring. I felt her shaking.

This pattern is not limited to verbs of sense. Causative verbs use it as well.

I made him leave. We had it painted. She got it fixed.

[JuanTwoThree]

I can see at least three things mixed up here. Not to say that I have them straightened out. Verbs of perception muddy things a bit.

First of all there are sentences that get close to containing gerunds:

Smoking is bad. I hate smoking. I hate your smoking. I hate you smoking.

It'd be (mock) archaic indeed though to say "He saw our taking the cakes"

Secondly I can see "I saw a man (---) walking down the road" as also perhaps being an elision of (who was) or (and he was). Substitute "him" and voila.

But then "I hear you(r) talking" goes back in the direction of the gerund.

"Make" and "let" however are semi-modals (obvious connections with obligation and permission) so here the absence of "to" is connected with modality.

Is the lack of "to-support" in verbs of perception and bare infinitives an expression of the modality of the situation? is there modality in "I saw him eat the cake" but not (so much) in "I saw him eating the cake"?

Andrew?

Do I remember (our/us) talking about this before?

Andrew!

Here:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=2542