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This is followed by the simple past tense , and then the past participle. If there are irregular present tense forms (see below), these are given in parentheses after the infinitive. (The present participle and gerund forms of verbs, ending in -ing, are always regular. In English, these are used as verbs, adjectives, and nouns.)
In some verbs, the past tense, past participle, or both are identical in form to the basic (infinitive) form of the verb. This is the case with certain strong verbs, where historical sound changes have led to a leveling of the vowel modifications: for example, let has both past tense and past participle identical to the infinitive, while come ...
The Modern English-ing ending, which is used to form both gerunds and present participles of verbs (i.e. in noun and adjective uses), derives from two different historical suffixes. The gerund (noun) use comes from Middle English-ing, which is from Old English-ing, -ung (suffixes forming nouns from verbs).
Some verbs are formed from nouns and adjectives by conversion, as with the verbs snare, nose, dry, and calm. The base form is used in the following ways: It serves as the bare infinitive , and is used in the to -infinitive (e.g. to write ); for uses see § Non-finite forms below.
The present participle/gerund is formed by adding -ing, again with the application of certain spelling rules similar to those that apply with -ed. The irregular verbs of English are described and listed in the article English irregular verbs (for a more extensive list, see List of English irregular verbs). In the case of these:
There are also many other nouns and adjectives derived from particular verbs, such as competition and competitive from the verb compete (as well as other types such as agent nouns). For more information see verbal noun, deverbal noun and deverbal adjective. For more on the distinction between the various uses of the -ing form of verbs, see -ing.
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With a noun followed by a prepositional phrase: mother-in-law, etc.; editor-in-chief, right of way, president pro tempore (where pro tempore is a Latin prepositional phrase), fish filet deluxe (where de luxe is a French prepositional phrase) With an infinitive verb or a verb phrase: father-to-be, bride-to-be, etc.; Johnny-come-lately