I saw a sentence in an article:
Janey saw her friend steal a bangle at the shop.
Why not stole, as it use saw?
Why her friend is singular but steal with no 's'?
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Sign up to join this communityI saw a sentence in an article:
Janey saw her friend steal a bangle at the shop.
Why not stole, as it use saw?
Why her friend is singular but steal with no 's'?
It should actually be ‘steal’ or ‘stealing’. The “pastness” of the action is already conveyed with ‘saw’.
Janet saw her friend steal a bangle at the shop
Janet saw her friend stealing a bangle at the shop
The first emphasises the completion of the stealing (Janet got away with it!) and the second emphasises the stealing action itself (Janet might or might not have been caught).
With the verb “to see”, if there is a verb after the object of “to see”, it must be in the present or present continuous sense. In this sentence, “her friend” is the object of “to see”, so we must have either “steal” or “stealing”.