Breakdown of Ich habe den Schmied das Eisen hämmern sehen.
ich
I
haben
to have
sehen
to see
der Schmied
the blacksmith
das Eisen
the iron
hämmern
to hammer
Questions & Answers about Ich habe den Schmied das Eisen hämmern sehen.
Why is the sentence using sehen at the end instead of the past participle gesehen?
This is due to the double infinitive rule, known in German as the Ersatzinfinitiv. When a perception verb like sehen or hören is used alongside another infinitive (here, hämmern) to form the perfect tense, it drops its normal past participle form (gesehen) and uses its infinitive form instead. As a result, you get two infinitives stacked at the end.
Why is the blacksmith in the accusative (den Schmied)? Isn't he the one doing the hammering?
He is indeed doing the hammering, but verbs of perception like sehen trigger a special grammatical structure. The person you perceive doing the action acts as the direct object of the main verb (sehen), which forces it into the accusative case (den Schmied). English actually does the exact same thing: you say 'I saw him hammer' rather than 'I saw he hammer'.
There are two accusative nouns here (den Schmied and das Eisen). How do we know which one is doing the action?
Standard word order and context clear this up. In this structure, the noun performing the action of the infinitive usually comes right before the object receiving that action. So, den Schmied comes first. Plus, common sense tells us the iron isn't hammering the blacksmith.
Is there a more common way to say this in everyday spoken German?
Yes. While this double infinitive structure is correct, German speakers often avoid it in everyday speech by using a subordinate clause with wie. It is very natural to say: Ich habe gesehen, wie der Schmied das Eisen gehämmert hat. Notice that when you split it into two clauses like this, the double infinitive disappears and sehen goes back to its normal past participle gesehen.
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