Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:   
      
   AH>  How about "I'm glad to hear you say so, Mr. President?"   
      
   ak>  well, YOU say.  No "s".   
      
      
                Right.   
      
      
      
   AH>  or "I'm glad to hear you, i.e. Alexander Koryagin, or   
   AH>  [him/her/it/them] say so?"   
      
   ak>  Ah!  There is a rule   
      
      
                I hadn't heard of it... but I think you're onto something.  It's   
   obvious that "to hear" is an infinitive in the examples above.  What I wasn't   
   sure of was whether or not "say" is also an infinitive in this context.  Your   
   excerpt from Wiki settled the question AFAIC, and I'm delighted because I now   
   understand *why* I would say what I'd say the way I'd say it.  Thankyou!  :-)   
      
      
      
   ak>  So, "I saw/watched/heard/etc.  it happen."   
      
      
                Or "I saw [him/her/it/them] break the window," for example.   
      
      
      
   ak>  (A similar meaning can be effected by using the   
   ak>  present participle instead:  "I saw/watched/heard/etc.   
   ak>  it happening." The difference is that the former   
   ak>  implies that the entirety of the event was perceived,   
   ak>  while the latter implies that part of the progress of   
   ak>  the event was perceived.)   
      
      
                I saw a man running down the alley with a box under his arm just   
   after the alarm went off in one of the local stores.  This actually happened,   
   BTW.  I didn't see where he came from or where he went, but I could offer the   
   police a good description of him because I was only a few feet away....  :-))   
      
      
      
   ak>  There is an essential difference between the Russian   
   ak>  grammar and the English one. ;) The Russian Grammar   
   ak>  orders the Russians to speak in a certain way, but the   
   ak>  English Grammar just describes the way the people talk.   
      
      
                During the 1960's some very influential linguists... including,   
   IIRC, Noam Chomsky... proclaimed that dictionaries & grammar texts should be   
   descriptive rather than prescriptive.  (I wouldn't be surprised to hear that   
   most if not all of these experts were native speakers of English, but at the   
   time I first became aware of such developments I was in university & my main   
   concern was about making sense of various people's ideas WRT how traditional   
   grammar could be improved upon.)  As a student in high school I had much the   
   same experience with language textbooks in general that you seem to have had   
   with sources of information about your own language.   
      
                Nowadays, with a few minor changes, traditional grammar remains   
   the most widely accepted & understood method of explaining why we do what we   
   do.  I am familiar with it.  English/English dictionaries still use it.  And   
   when my buddies in Russia use it, we're on the same wave length.  If I'm not   
   quite sure about the names of verb tenses in English, AAMOF, I often find it   
   easier to consult them than to locate old textbooks from yesteryear.  OTOH I   
   supply information others may need in order to decide for themselves whether   
   to say xxx or yyy.  That is my preferred learning & teaching style, and most   
   of my recent English-language sources try to strike a happy medium too.  :-)   
      
      
      
   ak>  Maybe, here there is a rule:  you _can_ omit "to" when   
   ak>  to verb are connected with "and." For instance,   
      
   ak>  I'd like to drink and tell you a story.   
      
      
                Sometimes.  FOWLER'S also lists that option.  As a co-ordinating   
   conjunction, "and" joins elements which are grammatically equal.  If you want   
   to use it to join two or more infinitives, that is perfectly acceptable.  The   
   second & subsequent infinitives are often bare infinitives... particularly in   
   colloquial speech.  They're still infinitives either way.  But as a matter of   
   style, it may be preferable *not* to use shortcuts in formal speech and/or in   
   other situations where they could render one's intentions less clear....  ;-)   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)