The grammatical structure of "I heard people sing" ?

[carolgreen876]

The structure "I heard people sing" is correct in grammar in common sense. But why is it correct? The common structure "S(ubject)V(erb)O(bject) tells us that we should have used "I heard people singing" (both poeple and singing serve as the object), or should have used "I heard that people sang" (the clause started with "that" serves as the object), but "I heard people sing"? What role does the verb "sing" play here? Is it actually meant "I heard people to sing?" ("to sing" serves as a prepositional complement) With "to" it looks and sounds awkward anyways.

[Duckduck]

Hi carolgreen876!

Wikipedia is not always a big help, but in this case I found their explanation both easy to understand and convincing:

Several common verbs of perception, including see, watch, hear, feel, and sense take a direct object and a bare infinitive, where the bare infinitive indicates an action taken by the main verb's direct object. So, "I saw/watched/heard/etc. it happen." (A similar meaning can be effected by using the present participle instead: "I saw/watched/heard/etc. it happening." The difference is that the former implies that the entirety of the event was perceived, while the latter implies that part of the progress of the event was perceived.)

Cheers
Duckduck