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Which of the following sentence sounds natural and correct and why?

  1. I can help you practice English.
    Vs
    I can help you practicing English.

  2. Yesterday, I saw the dog bark.
    Vs
    Yesterday, I saw the dog barking.

Would this sentence be regarded as correct or wrong?

I saw Tom helped her yesterday.

Can anyone explain me the structures of the objects of the verbs? Is ‘you’ in the object clause of sentence 1 acting as subject of the gerund or infinitive phrase? Also, can anyone explain to me when and how to use bare infinitive verbs as a object of verb phrase?

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3
  • This is two quite different questions; since Tᴚoɯɐuo has already addressed the first I have taken the liberty of 'editing out' the second, which appears in the title. You may ask it as a separate question; you may find the tag-wiki on aspect helpful.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Oct 31, 2018 at 11:13
  • Can you please answer it here? I don’t know why there seems to be some error while posting the question again.
    – Sarosh
    Commented Oct 31, 2018 at 11:45
  • What sort of an "error"? I'll be happy to help you post it, if the link I posted doesn't answer your question.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Oct 31, 2018 at 12:20

1 Answer 1

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2 
I can help
     you 
    (to) practice English

practicing would not be grammatical there.

But see (and other verbs of sensation) allows for the participle:

I saw 
   her
   walk  | walking

Your example is grammatical:

I saw
 (that) Tom helped her yesterday.

In lieu of an object like "her" there is a finite clause.

as saw can also take a finite clause complement.

and a non-finite clause complement:

  I saw
     Tom helping her yesterday.
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  • Note that "I can help you, practicing English" is grammatical, but has a different meaning. "I can help you, (while I am) practicing English."
    – Richard Winters
    Commented Nov 1, 2018 at 9:24

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