A verbal is a noun or
adjective formed from a verb. Writers
sometimes make mistakes by using a verbal in place of a
verb, and in very formal writing, by confusing different
types of verbals. This section covers three different
verbals: the participle (which acts as an
adjective), the gerund (which acts as a
noun), and the infinitive (which also acts
as a noun).
The fundamental difference between verbals and other
nouns and adjectives is that
verbals can take their own objects, even
though they are no longer verbs:
- Gerund
- Building a house is complicated.
In this example, the noun phrase "a house" is the
direct object of the verbal "building", even though
"building" is a noun rather than a
verb.
The Participle
A participle is an adjective
formed from a verb. To make a present participle, you add "-ing" to the verb,
sometimes doubling the final consonant:
- "think" becomes "thinking"
- "fall" becomes "falling"
- "run" becomes "running"
The second type of participle, the past participle, is a little more complicated, since not all
verbs form the past tense regularly. The
following are all past participles:
- the sunken ship
- a ruined city
- a misspelled word
Note that only transitive verbs can use their
past participles as adjectives, and that
unlike other verbals, past participles do
not take objects (unless they are part of a
compound verb).
The Gerund
A gerund is a noun formed from a
verb. To make a gerund, you add "-ing"
to the verb, just as with a present participle. The fundamental difference is that a
gerund is a noun, while a
participle is an adjective:
- gerund
- I enjoy running. ("Running" is a
noun acting as the direct object of the
verb "enjoy.")
- participle
- Stay away from running water. ("Running" is an
adjective modifying the noun
"water".)
Using Verbals
There are two common problems that come up when writers use
verbals. The first is that since verbals
look like verbs, they sometimes cause students to write
fragmentary sentences:
- [WRONG] Oh, to find true love!
- [WRONG] Jimmy, swimming the most important race of his
life.
The second problem is a very fine point, which most editors and
some teachers no longer enforce. Although they look the same,
gerunds and present participles are
different parts of speech, and need to be treated
differently. For example, consider the following two sentences:
- I admire the woman finishing the report.
- I admire the woman's finishing the report.
In the first example, "finishing" is a participle
modifying the noun "woman": in other words, the
writer admires the woman, not what she is doing; in the
second example, "finishing" is a participle,
modified by the possessive noun "woman's": in other
words, the writer admires not the woman herself but the fact that she
is finishing the report.
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