My reply to Spelling:You asked why there no an "s" at the end of "bloom" in this sentence: "Plant a tree and see hope bloom." Before answering that question, let's check what kind of sentence we are dealing with here.
The construction "Plant a tree and see hope bloom" is actually a compound imperative-form sentence consisting of two coordinate clauses, "plant a tree" and "see hope bloom"--linked by the conjunction "and." Recall that
imperative sentences tell people what to do in the form of a command or instruction, a request, or an advice. Typically, imperative sentences don't have a stated but only an implied subject and they begin with the verb that issues the command or instruction. In the sentence in question, the issuer of the command is the implied second-person "you" and the command verbs are "plant" and "see."
The structure of the first clause "plant a tree" is clear and straightforward, so its grammar needs no elaboration here. In the case of the second clause "see hope bloom," however, the vocabulary, grammar, and syntax are more complicated. The verb "see" is one of the
verbs of perception, along with "watch" and "hear," that takes the
bare infinitive--an infinitive that drops the particle "to"--as direct object of the verb. Specifically, the verb of perception takes a direct object and a bare infinitive, where the bare infinitive indicates an action taken by the main verb's direct object. In the sentence in question here, that bare infinitive happens to be the verbal "bloom" ("to bloom" minus the "to"). This is the reason why it can't possibly take the present-tense form "blooms" as you might have thought. Indeed, the bare infinitive "bloom" in effect indicates an action taken by the main verb's direct object "hope."
For a much better understanding and appreciation of the nature and uses of bare infinitives and of the verbals in general, I suggest that you check out the related Forum readings below.
RECOMMENDED FURTHER READINGS:How gerunds and infinitives workThe choice between gerunds and infinitivesChoosing between full infinitives, bare infinitives, and gerunds - 1
