This type of sentence is used to indicate our feelings either about an action, though the construction is used in a number of other cases as well. (ex: I saw him playing at the park.)
In general,
Subject (doesn't) like/love/hate/enjoy/etc Object Gerund.
Examples:
Bill likes puppies playing.
In general, Bill enjoys watching dogs play.
She despises people touching her things.
In general, she gets very upset when people touch her things.
Dad didn't like John enlisting.
John has joined the military and Dad is unhappy about that fact.
Fathers often don't like their daughters dating.
In general, many fathers are not happy that their daughters go on dates.
Using the possessive is more natural in some cases, but it has a slightly different meaning.
1 - Bill likes Sarah singing.
2 - Bill likes Sarah's singing.
Sentence 1 means that Bill likes the fact that Sarah is singing. Perhaps she was shy, but now that she has sung in public she is less so and sings more often now. It doesn't mean that Sarah's voice is pleasant, necessarily, only that the act of her singing brings Bill pleasure.
Sentence 2 means that Bill enjoys the actual music that Sarah produces.
Songs sometimes hearken back to older ballads, and so we encounter in songs syntax that is a little archaic, different than we would use in contemporary conversation. These are not "grammatical errors" but stylistic features.
Compare the timeline here, for example:
Best Answer
As a rule of thumb, if a verb allows an object infinitive complement without to,
then it's very likely to be a short verb of Germanic origin.
(Basically, these are the ones that have been around for long enough to get their edges worn off)
E.g, let, make, have, go, come, see, hear, watch
A verb like allow, which comes from French, is excluded,
even though it means the same thing as let.
So allow requires the infinitive complementizer to
with an infinitive complement, while let does not even allow it.
but