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This is a quotation from Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Some words are changed for the sake of political correctness xd Anyway...

"People would come miles to hear Jim tell about it"

I understand what's meant, but how should I parse it? I mean bold part.

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to hear Jim tell and to hear Jim telling are both grammatical, and nearly the same in meaning. In the first one, the object of hear is a non-finite VP (verb phrase) with a bare infinitive.

The second is more interesting, because some people would parse it as a non-finite VP with a verbal noun ("gerund"); but others would say that the object is a NP (noun phrase) consisting of the noun Jim modified by the verbal adjective (participle) telling.

If there is a difference in meaning, it is an aspectual one, similar to the difference between when he told and when he was telling.

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As I'm sure you realise 'Huckleberry Finn' is written in the accent and idiom of the American Deep South, in the 19th century. In correct modern English the sentence would read 'People would come from miles to hear Jim talk about it.'The verb 'come' is intransitive and therefore cannot have a direct object. 'Miles' is indirect and therefore needs a preposition of some kind, clearly 'from'. The principal verb is 'would come' used in the imperfect tense i.e. meaning 'people used to come from miles....'The subject is 'People', and the other indirect object is the clause 'to hear Jim talk about it'. 'Tell' is transitive and would require a direct object within the clause. You can 'tell a story about it', or 'tell a stranger about it', but you can not simply 'tell about it'. 'Talk' is intransitive so for correctness Jim needs to 'talk about it'.

Transitive verbs must always have a direct object. The most frequently recurring mistake in modern English is when people are urged to 'Enjoy', as an imperative but with no object. You cannot simply 'Enjoy' any more than you can simply 'love' or simply 'abuse'. You have to enjoy something. So next time the waiter or waitress puts a plate in front of you and urges you to 'Enjoy', tell him or her that it is a transitive verb and requires a direct object.

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  • I should have formulated the question more exactly. I meant rather grammar form of word tell/talk in the sentence. Why not 'talking', for instance? I certainly saw such a construction for several times, but still can't comprehend it, neither find any specific information in text-books on this subject.
    – olegst
    Commented Sep 25, 2013 at 18:50
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    This is not a Deep South accent. As Mark Twain says in his "Explanatory": "In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike County" dialect, and four modified varieties of this last. ... I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding."
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Sep 25, 2013 at 19:05
  • Thank you for that. It is nearly sixty years since I read it so had forgotten what Mark Twain said in his 'Explanatory'. Sadly, as you have noticed, I know very little about American dialects, especially since the dialects of the different regions of Britain are a great interest to me.
    – user52780
    Commented Sep 25, 2013 at 19:16
  • Ok, but nevertheless...what is grammar form of that 'tell'? I mean sentences like..for instance: 'I never saw him DO that'. Can I say 'doing that' instead?
    – olegst
    Commented Sep 25, 2013 at 19:29
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    Yes, both are possible. 'I run' and 'I am running' are both legitimate forms of the present tense. The second is sometimes called 'the present continuous'. You might say ' I run every Friday' but 'I am running at this very moment'. It is really only through experience and usage that you can learn when one is appropriate and when the other. The ...ing form has a more literal and more immediate implication.
    – user52780
    Commented Sep 25, 2013 at 21:25

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