Verbals: When is a Verb Not a Verb?

A noun is a noun; an adjective is an adjective (most of the time); and an adverb is generally an adverb. A verb, however, is anything it wants to be. Gerunds, participles, and infinitives all began their roles in life and language as verbs; then became other things. Sometimes, this chameleon act confuses writers. The word, 'verbal' refers to these verbs that serve as other parts of speech. This is a brief discussion of gerunds, participles, and infinitives. The most flexible form of verbal is the infinitive.

Infinitives

Infinitives are, in basic form, the verb, preceded by the word, to. They are, indeed flexible, as they can be nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.

Noun: "I try to write English properly."

Adjective: "I have an article to write before I retire."

Adverb: "The students arrived to write the papers"

Confusing? OK, to write is an infinitive, and, depending on the sentence, can be used as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb.

Sentence one: to write is the object of the verb, try, and is, therefore, a noun.

Sentence two: to write modifies the noun, article and is, therefore, an adjective.

Sentence three: to write modifies the verb, arrived and is, therefore, an adverb.

More examples should help clarify these uses and will follow in part two.

Infinitives can have one or more modifiers, for example, 'to write clearly' where clearly is an adverb that modifies the infinitive; in which case, the construction is called an "infinitive phrase." This raises the question that has occupied much space and discussion, the split infinitive in which the modifier comes between the word to and the verb, such as to clearly write. I shall add to the space and discussion, but only briefly. As a general principle, infinitives should be clear, suggesting that too many words between the to and the verb could be awkward or confusing. It is still considered bad form to split infinitives in formal writing. However, even though a self confessed, rigid prescriptive grammarian, I think, in cases in which it can introduce no ambiguity, confusion, or awkwardness it is better to sometimes split (sic) the infinitive, than to create an awkward sounding phrase in order to avoid it (although probably not in the preceding sentence). I cannot convince myself that this rule serves any significant purpose.

Infinitive phrases can also contain nouns, pronouns, or noun phrases that act as objects or modifiers of the infinitive. "To climb the shining tower of rectitude, one must..." When such phrases are adverbial, and begin the sentence, a comma is required at the end of the phrase, but no other punctuation is required for infinitives or infinitive phrases.

Gerunds

Gerunds are verbal nouns and they end in -ing. Simple? Yes. Gerunds are verbs that act as nouns; they can serve in any capacity that a noun serves. A gerund can be the subject of a sentence. "Bowling is making a comeback in popularity." Bowling is a gerund and the subject of the sentence. Notice that not all verbs that end in -ing are gerunds; some are just verbs; some are participles.

Complaining is Alice's hobby. Gerund as a subject of the sentence.

Andrew doesn't like Alice's complaining. Gerund as an object. Note the fact that in this use, it requires the possessive, Alice's.

Alice's hobby is complaining. Here, the gerund, complaining, is a subject complement.

Gerunds are relatively simple to understand. They virtually never require any punctuation, and they always have the same form. All gerunds end in -ing, however, not all verbs that end in -ing are gerunds. This rarely causes confusion, and part two will contrast the gerunds with other verbs that have the same outward form. The most common errors involving gerunds is a failure to recognize them and their role in the sentences. For example, "Andrew was tired of Alice's complaining about everything," recognizes that complaining is the object of which Andrew is tired. However, this sentence is frequently written, "Andrew was tired of Alice complaining about everything." When written that way, it changes the part of speech that the word complaining serves, and forces the interpretation that it is Alice (not her complaining) of which Andrew is tired. It is equivalent to the sentence, "Andrew is tired of Alice, who is complaining about everything," wherein the who is, is understood. The two sentences do not mean exactly the same thing.

Participles

Participles are verbals that are, by definition, used as adjectives. They differ from the infinitives that are used as adjectives in their form. Present participles, as gerunds, end in -ing. Past participles are not so accommodating so as to end in any single letter or combination of letters, but there are only a few. Past participles add, as endings to the verbs, -ed, -en, -d, -t, or -n, as in the words, repeated, beaten, paved, swept, and seen.

Present participle: "The screaming man was led away by the police."

Past participle: "He snickered at his friend's obviously dyed hair"

Past participle: "The oft repeated phrase had grown trite."

Past and present participles: "The beaten and screaming man was led away by the police." The man had been beaten and was currently screaming.

Or, perhaps, "The beaten, screaming, but smiling lawyer was led away by the police as the event was taped by a witness."

Participial phrases are participles with modifiers, objects, or complements. "The man, loudly screaming at the police, was led away in handcuffs." Participial phrases are set off by commas when they are at the beginning of the sentence or are unessential to the meaning of the sentence (coordinate).

"Screaming at the police, the man was led away." Or, "The man, screaming at the police, was led away." In either case, the participial phrase is coordinate, or unnecessary to the meaning of the sentence, which is, "The man was led away."

Nearly everyone educated in the United States has been warned about "dangling participles." Nevertheless, I am convinced that most people familiar with the phrase, are actually unclear about what it means. So, what's a dangling participle? First, though, before defining or illustrating this sin, a step back to discuss a general principle would be helpful. The really general principle is clarity simple, obvious, clarity of writing. Being a touch more specific, the principle is clarity of modifiers with respect to what they are intended to modify. More specifically, adjectives, of whatever origin, should be as close to the nouns or pronouns they modify as possible. Participles are adjectives and, when they are separated far enough from their nouns so that they may lose track of them, they are, "dangling."

"The man was led away by the police, screaming." Who was screaming? We're not sure, but it seems most likely to be the police from the structure of the sentence. After all, "screaming" (the participle) is physically closer to the noun, police, than the noun, man, which, from previous sentences, we suspect might be the word intended to be modified. "Screaming," in that sentence, is a dangling participle. Note that it would have dangled no matter what kind of adjective it was. "The man was led away from the police, green," is just as bad if you mean, "The green man was led away by the police." The principle is that the participle should be as close as possible to the word it modifies. Moreover, the word the participle modifies should be clearly stated.

"Pushing a baby carriage, her ankle twisted in a hole in the pavement." In that sentence, there is no clear word that is modified by pushing. Although this seems clear enough, forgetting the principles of clear and close lead to frequent errors in writing. Part two will concentrate on expanding these examples and contrasting the uses and meanings of verbals.