I would like to verify if this sentence has an example of a bare infinitive.
I can see them rallying across the street.
Thank you in advance for you replies.
I am an uneducated non-native non-teacher (augurs well for someone who wants a decent response, huh?), but I am happy to share my views on this. :up:
The verb in the main clause is "can see". The main clause is finite, ie., it shows tense. When you see a cluster of verbs in a finite clause, it is always the first verb that carries person, number, and tense. In your sentence, "can" does that, in keeping with one of the features of central modals: they have no nonfinite forms. The bare infinitive form of "to see" is "see". But this is, say, the singular first person form of "to see" too. No problem! As I already mentioned, the first verb is finite, the rest is nonfinite. If "see" is nonfinite, it must be a bare infinitive. On the other hand, if "see" is finite, as is here:
I see them rallying across the street.,
that "see" is not a bare infitive.
To recapitulate:
I can
see them rallying across the street. --
bare inf.
I
see them rallying across the street. --
no bare inf.
:up:
