ESL Discussion

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  • valentina March 6, 2016 23:54



    TK Chan said:

    Dear classmate,

    hah, you are so funny.

    Honestly, I did not hear him screaming is grammatically correct, whereas I did not  hear his screaming is incorrect, so it should be  I did not hear his scream, which is already a noun, so you do not have to add -ing to make scream a noun.

    TK

    Chan, you're rather funny too. Our friend didn't mean a noun."...hear him screaming" is the Complex Object with the Participle, and "...hear his screaming" is the gerund with a possessive adjective (some call them possessive pronouns). Both are correct. By the way, in his first variant (...him scream, and ...his scream) we can see the Complex Object with the Infinitive and the noun with a possessive adjective.

    Verb or Gerrund
    Do you say: I didn't hear him scream. Or: I didn't hear his scream. I have seen both ways.
  • Breeze February 1, 2016 10:55

    Oops, I mean 'hear him screaming or hear his screaming.

    • TK Chan > Breeze February 7, 2016 2:52

      Dear classmate,

      hah, you are so funny.

      Honestly, I did not hear him screaming is grammatically correct, whereas I did not  hear his screaming is incorrect, so it should be  I did not hear his scream, which is already a noun, so you do not have to add -ing to make scream a noun.

      TK

  • Jonathan R P Taylor January 31, 2016 11:04

    Both are fine!

    "I didn't hear him scream, so he must be safe," I thought to myself.

    "I didn't hear his scream, I thought he was safe," I said.

    Just a matter of tense...

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