English Language: past tense help.?

Question

My son asked me a question that I couldn't answer. In the following sentence:

"The boy saw that girl run to her mother."

Why isn't "Run" in the past tense form "Ran". I know that ran sounds wrong but couldn't explain why it was used. Thanks

How about a variation:

"The boy is seeing that girl run to her mother."

Answer 1

The 'saw' is past tense, but the 'run' is present.

When you are describing things that happened in the past, using verbs like see, hear, etc., you put the verbs in the descriptive part in the present tense - in the tense that fits at the time the event you are describing happened.

The second sentence (seeing) is a grammatically correct sentence, but it seems clumsy. 'sees' seems to fit better.

Answer 2

What did the boy see? He saw the girl run. OR he saw that the girl ran. This one doesn't seem complete. He saw that the girl ran to her mother so he went the other way/ but her brother stayed where he was. hope this helps

Answer 3

If "run" is replaced with "ran" in the sentence, (The boy saw that girl ran to her mother.), then the time sequence is not clear and the sentence is wrong.

"The boy is seeing that girl run to her mother." is wrong. This is because "see" is a STATIVE VERB and so it cannot be used in the continuous tense.

So, the sentence, "The boy saw that girl run to her mother."
is the right usage.

Answer 4

Maybe there's a clearer explanation somewhere else about the difference between simple past and present perfect, but if not, the book simply isn't very good. The difference between "I saw ET" and "I've seen ET" is that you use the former whenever you're referring to a time period that doesn't extend to the present, whether explicitly mentioned or only implied. So, for instance: "I saw ET in 2003." (2003 ended already.) "I recommended ET to you last year, did you see it?" (An indefinite time period around that time is implied.) If there's no such time period, even implied, present perfect is generally used. "I've seen ET." (It's irrelevant when that was.) Compare: "Last week they had a classic scifi movie week in Orion Theater. My favourite movie ET was shown several times..." "... Did you see it?" (Did you see it last week in Orion?) "... Have you seen it?" (Have you ever seen it? Do you know what I'm talking about?) It's irrelevant whether one's speaking of a repeated action, or whether the information is new to the listener. "I've seen ET twice." (Twice ever.) "I saw a movie called 'ET' twice in 2003." (Limited time period; repeated action, new information.) "Thanks for lending me the ET DVD. I've watched it already, so you can take it with you." (Old information.) Edit: Come to think of it, not mentioning that present perfect usually implies a connection with the present time and vice versa was clearly an oversight on my part. However, an explicit time specification grammatically severs the connection, no matter how strong it is semantically. For instance: "Why are you limping?" "I hurt my foot yesterday." Even though the very point of the sentence is to express the causal connection between yesterday's accident and the present ailment, the present perfect tense cannot be used in conjuction with "yesterday", which specifies a time period not extending to the present.

Answer 5

"The boy saw that girl ran to her mother." Doesn't sound wrong to me, but it means he saw THAT the girl ran to her mother. (She has already run to her mother, and he saw that but not her running.)

"The boy saw that girl run to her mother" means he actually saw her running.

"The boy is seeing that girl run to her mother" means RIGHT NOW he sees her run to her mother.