As all of us know as a general grammatical rule,the verb tense in second clause which comes after a simple past tense clause must be in one of the past tenses.
For example:
She knew she had made the right choice.
I touched the baby's head who was crying.
But I wondered when I saw this sentence.
I heard a little boy waving his hands above the water.
I saw a little boy drop his ice cream
Shouldn't it be:
I heard a little boy was waving his hands above the water?
I saw a little boy had dropped his ice cream.
Are there any exceptions to this grammar rule? If yes,what are those specific verbs ?
Best Answer
This sentence is fine. "A little boy waving" doesn't violate the rule you stated because it's not a finite present tense verb phrase; it's a present participle phrase meaning it describes an action in progress at the time of discourse. Thus, this sentence means the subject ("I") heard the sound of a boy who was currently in the process of the action of waving. This could be equivalently stated as:
But there is a slight difference between the original and this one. The original implies the sound being heard is caused by the waving. The other version only connects the sound to the boy.
Your proposed alternative:
actually means something slightly different. In this case, "heard" becomes a verb of indirect reporting and the speaker is reporting that a little boy was waving his hands above the water presumably based on what someone else told the speaker.