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Identifying
Verbals in English Grammar
Participles, Gerunds, and
Infinitives
by Richard Nordquist from thoughtco.com
Updated August 10, 2017
When is a verb not a verb?
The answer is when it's a verbal—that is, the form of a verb that functions as
another part of speech. (Verbals are sometimes
called nonfinite verbs.)
There are three types of verbals in English grammar:
- participles (also known as -ing forms and -en forms)
- gerunds (also known as -ing forms)
- infinitives
As we'll see, each of these verbals is often part of a phrase, which includes related modifiers, objects, and complements.
Participles
A participle is a verb form that can be used as an adjective to modify nouns and pronouns. The following sentence contains
both a present and a past participle:
The
children, crying and exhausted, were guided out of the collapsed
house.
Crying
is a present participle, formed by adding -ing
to the present form of the verb (cry). Exhausted is a past participle, formed by adding -ed
to the present form of the verb (exhaust). Both participles modify the subject, children.
All present participles end in -ing. The past
participles of all regular verbs end in -ed. Irregular verbs, however, have various past
participle endings—for instance, thrown, ridden,
built, and gone.
A participial phrase is made up of a
participle and its modifiers. A participle may be followed by an object, an adverb, a prepositional phrase, an adverb clause, or any combination of these.
For example, in the following sentence the participial phrase consists of a
present participle (holding), an object (the torch), and an
adverb (steadily):
Holding
the torch steadily, Jenny approached the monster.
In the next sentence, the participial phrase consists of a
present participle (making), an object (a great ring), and a
prepositional phrase (of white light):
Jenny
waved the torch over her head, making a great ring of white light.
For more information about using participles and participial
phrases, visit Creating and Arranging Participial Phrases.
Gerunds
A gerund is a verb form ending in -ing
that functions in a sentence as a noun. Although both the present participle
and the gerund are formed by adding -ing to a verb, note that the
participle does the job of an adjective while the gerund does the job of a
noun. Compare the verbals in these two sentences:
- The children, crying and exhausted, were guided out of the collapsed house.
- Crying will not get you anywhere.
Whereas the participle crying modifies the subject in
the first sentence, the gerund Crying is the subject of the
second sentence.
Infinitives
An infinitive is a verb form—often preceded by
the particle to—that can function as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb.
Compare the verbals in these two sentences:
- I don't like crying in public unless I'm getting paid for it.
- I don't like to cry in public unless I'm getting paid for it.
In the first sentence, the gerund crying serves as
the direct object. In the second sentence, the
infinitive to cry performs the same function.
Exercise: Identifying Verbals
For each of the following sentences, decide if the word or
phrase in italics is a participle, a gerund, or an infinitive.
- The children's singing and laughing woke me up.
- Jenny likes to dance in the rain.
- There are many ways of breaking a heart.
- A broken heart will mend over time.
- "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city." (George Burns)
- I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner.
- "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." (Woody Allen)
- "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." (Woody Allen)
- "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail." (Gore Vidal)
- Succeeding is not enough. Others must fail.
Answer Key
- gerunds
- infinitive
- gerund
- (past) participle
- (present) participles
- gerund
- infinitives
- gerund
- infinitive
- gerund
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