Johanna asked me to forward this. I'll respond in a another post.
Craig
-------- Original Message --------
Craig,
I hate continuing to ask people to post for me, but I haven't resolved
the e-mail issue yet.
As to "See Spot run", this construction isn't limited to intransitive
verbs, as your "I saw the young lady steal the watch". And I think the
main argument for seeing these as object complements is the case
marking on the subject of the infinitive verb: "I saw _her_ steal the
watch." These were analyzed as subject-raising constructions in
transformational grammar -- the tension between the subject role of the
"her" and its object role causes the problem and the variation in
analytical approaches.
Regarding causatives vs. perception verbs, English regularly treats
perception verbs as transitives, if not causatives, so I don't think
it's odd to find them in these constructions. As to your process
argument, the lack of either tense or aspect marking on the verb works
against it; this kind of marking serves exactly the purpose of not
imposing a particular tense/aspect reading.
Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba