Verbals Participles Gerunds and Infinitives Verbals What are

Verbals Participles, Gerunds, and Infinitives

Verbals: What are they? • A verbal is a word that is formed from a verb but acts as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb. • Verbals may be used alone in a sentence: • Eating is essential to life. • Verbals may be used as part of a verbal phrase: • Eating healthy foods may extend your life.

e l p i c i t r Pa A parti ciple is a verb that is form used a s an ad jective. I’m having an identity crisis. Verb

Present Participles Present participles are formed by adding – ing to the plain form of the verb. Examples: The grinning cat perched in the tree. Stretching along the branch, it proceeded to take a nap.

Past Participles Past participles are formed by adding –ed, to the plain form of the verb. Others may be formed as irregular verbs. My dachshund had a bewildered look on her face. Soaked to the bone, she ran from the sprinkler system.

Examples: The developing storm kept small boats in port. Pleased with her acheivements, the student smiled broadly.

Gerunds A gerund is a verb form used as a noun. The gerund is formed by adding –ing to the present tense of the verb: Jog jogging Jogging is good exercise. Jogging at night can be dangerous.

Gerunds can be used as: A subject: Jogging is a popular form of exercise. A predicate nominative: One popular form of exercise is jogging. A direct object: My sister enjoys jogging. Enjoys what? jogging An object of the preposition: These shoes are made for jogging. *Don’t confuse gerunds with present participles: A participle is a verb form that acts like an adjective. participle jogging shoes

Infinitive: An infinitive is a verb that usually begins with the word to and acts as a noun, and adjective, or an adverb. to run to see to hear

Infinitives can be used as: • A noun: To win the race was Joe’s only desire. • An adjective: Lou’s attempt to answer all of the questions was successful. (What kind of attempt? ) • An adverb: To escape poverty, Tom studied hard. (Studied why? )

WARNING: The word “to” is a preposition when it is followed by a noun or pronoun that is its object. I need a ride to the game. We went to Jeff’s party. Prepositions To check whether the phrase is an infinitive or a preposition, look at what follows to. to + verb = infinitive (to eat) to + noun/pronoun = preposition (to the store)

Now let’s practice! • Grammar for Writing Workbook • Pages 139 -141, “Gerunds and Gerund Phrases”