Singing bird (was: does my lang cover everything?)

>Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:
>Ages ago, I learned in school that it would rather have to be 'I heard
>the bird sing' instead.  The rule was that after verbs of perception,
>the infinitive is used instead of the gerund.  However, I often see
>this rule violated by L1 speakers.  How do you judge the correctness?
In all my 60+ years speaking English as L1 and in all my academic
experience leading to a B.A. in English, I never came across that
rule.  I'm not saying it doesn't exist, just that I never heard of it.

I see (feel?) a differnce in the two phrases.  Unfortunately, I can't
put my finger (ear?) on it at the moment.

BTW, does "I heard the bird singing" mean the same thing as "I heard
the singing bird"?

Charlie

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