Question

highlight the word(s) modified by the word, clause, or phrase in bold. joe burrow was surprised to see me climbing the oak tree in his backyard.

Explanation:

In the sentence "Joe Burrow was surprised to see me climbing the oak tree in his backyard", the bolded phrase "climbing the oak tree" is a participial phrase that modifies the object "me". It describes what "me" was doing. So the word modified by the bolded phrase is "me".

Answer:

me