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4. Participles are used to form periphrastic verb tenses: The present participle forms the progressive aspect with the auxiliary verb be: Jim was sleeping. The past participle forms the perfect aspect with the auxiliary verb have: The chicken has eaten. 5. The past participle is used to form passive voice: The chicken was eaten.
The gerund takes the same form (ending in -ing) as the present participle, but is used as a noun (or rather the verb phrase introduced by the gerund is used as a noun phrase). [23] Many uses of gerunds are thus similar to noun uses of the infinitive.
(exciting is a participle, taking the object the crowds) It was a very exciting game. (exciting is a pure adjective, modified by very, an adverb typically applied to adjectives) When used as a pure noun or adjective (i.e. having lost its grammatical verbal character), the -ing form may be called a deverbal noun or deverbal adjective.
For more information see fused participle. Gerund forms are often used as plain verbal nouns, which function grammatically like common nouns (in particular, by being qualified by adjectives rather than adverbs): He did some excellent writing (compare the gerund: He is known for writing excellently).
These verbs precede nouns or adjectives in a sentence, which become predicate nouns and predicate adjectives. [5] Copulae are thought to 'link' the predicate adjective or noun to the subject. They can also be followed by an adverb of place, which is sometimes referred to as a predicate adverb. For example: "My house is down the street."
With the exception of the highly irregular verb be, an English verb can have up to five forms: its plain form (or bare infinitive), a third person singular present tense, a past tense (or preterite), a past participle, and the -ing form that serves as both a present participle and gerund.
A gerund is a verb form that appears in positions that are usually reserved for nouns. In English, a gerund has the same form as a progressive active participle and so ends in -ing. Gerunds typically appear as subject or object noun phrases or even as the object of a preposition:
A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language illustrates the gradience from verbal nouns to verbs in their present participle forms, with the earlier examples behaving more like nouns and the later examples behaving more like verbs: [58] some paintings of Brown’s; Brown’s paintings of his daughters