Are there any differences between "The police observed the man enter the bank." and "The police observed the man entering the bank. " Does sentence one mean that the police observed the whole process that the man enter the bank? Does sentence two mean that the police observe the action of the man entering the bank? One emphasize the whole process and the other emphasize the exact action of entering. Am I right?
Thank you very much!
Best Answer
This is not the best example. Since 'entering' is not something a person can just partially do (they either enter or they don't, like being pregnant), the contrast is not very strong. As such, whatever the police saw, they must have inferred that the process of the man entering the bank ran to its completion.
A better example would be
vs.
Both of these sentences report a fact in a very general way. In either case, whether the police saw the man finish eating the hot dog is an open question.
Note, however, that only the first of the following two is acceptable:
You could say, however,
.....
Also, there is one special way in which the original sentences are different:
The sentence
can answer the question
but the other sentence cannot:
This is because "entering the bank" can be the complement to the verb "observed" (compare "I love entering the bank!") OR a modifier to the noun "man" (compare "People entering banks are usually in a bad mood.")
By contrast, "enter the bank" can ONLY be the complement to the verb "observed", since "the man enter the bank" makes no sense on its own as a noun phrase (compare "the man entering the bank")