Verbs of senses (Part 2)

In Part 1, we answered the question why past tense verbs cannot follow sense words such as hear. For example:

(1) We heard her crying. (not *cried)

That answer is inadequate because it fails to account for a sentence like (2):

(2) We heard John escaped.

In (2) we have the sense verb heard just like in (1), so we might expect the past tense escaped to be unacceptable. Yet escaped is acceptable in (2) after the sense verb heard.

Why, you may wonder.

Well, the answer lies in the clause after the sense verb. In sentence (2), this clause is John escaped and in (1), it is her crying. The former is a finite clause and the latter is a non-finite clause.

A finite clause contains a subject and a verb phrase that carries tense:

(3) He lives here.
(4) She jogged yesterday.

In (3) for example, the verb phrase lives here contains the present tense verb lives, so the clause (which is also the entire sentence) is finite.

We thus say John escaped is finite because it contains a subject John and a finite verb escaped. We can test this in a number of ways. For instance, we can replace John with a subject pronoun he but not with an object pronoun him:

(5) We heard he escaped.
(6) *We heard him escaped.

We can usually insert the conjunction that before a finite clause:

(7) We heard that John escaped.

A non-finite clause, on the other hand, usually does not have an overt subject and carries no tense markers:

(8) She loves to sing.
(9) They made him run.
(10) He dreads getting up so early.

In (8) for example, the clause to sing does not have an overt subject and is not marked for tense, so it is non-finite.

If a clause is non-finite, we can neither use a subject pronoun nor insert the conjunction that:

(11) *We heard she crying.
(12) *We heard that her crying.

The analysis above applies to causative verbs as well:

(13) They made him wait.

The clause him wait is non-finite, because we can't replace him with he and neither can we insert the conjunction that:

(14) *They made he wait.
(15) *They made that him wait.

Using the notion of finiteness, we can easily explain the tensed swam in (16) and the non-tensed swim in (17):

(16) We watched as they swam.
(17) We watched them swim.

Verbs of senses (Part 1)

Many students have trouble choosing the correct form of the verb in the following sentence:

(1) We heard her scream/*screamed for help.

Because of the past tense verb heard, students who are not careful will choose the past tense screamed instead of the bare infinitive scream (or the -ing form screaming).

A similar mistake is often made with the verb make:

(2) They made me wait/*waited.

Again, the wrong verb form waited is chosen because of its connectedness with the past tense made.

So why is the past tense form of the verb unacceptable after verbs such as heard or made? Well, the reason is the verb is preceded by a special class of verbs. Words such as heard fall under verbs of senses while words such as made are called causative verbs.

After verbs of senses, only the bare infinitive or the -ing form of the verb is acceptable:

Subject + Sense verb + Object +  Infinitive / Present participle

(3) We watched them play/playing.
(4) I saw him climb/climbing over the fence.

With causative verbs such as make and help, only the bare infinitive is allowed:

Subject + Causative verb + Object +  Infinitive

(5) She made me laugh.
(6) I helped her complete the puzzle.

In Part 2, we'll look at the structure of the clause after the sense verb or causative verb and explain why only the bare infinitive or the -ing form of the verb is permitted.