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Yet, the same verbal suffix is used after the verb ‘to beat’ which ends an independent non-finite clause that temporally precedes the following clause but without modifying it in any way that would be fit for an adverbial. It would be possible for -ΕΎ to mark an adverbial:
The past participle is been, and the present participle and gerund is the regular being. The base form be is used regularly as an infinitive, imperative and (present) subjunctive. For archaic forms, see the next section. English has a number of modal auxiliary verbs which are defective.
In perfect progressive (or perfect continuous) constructions, the perfect auxiliary (a form of have) is followed by the past participle been (from be, the auxiliary of the progressive aspect), which in turn is followed by the present participle of the main verb. As before, the perfect auxiliary can appear in various tenses, moods and non-finite ...
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 clause typically contains a subject (a noun phrase) and a predicate (a verb phrase in the terminology used above; that is, a verb together with its objects and complements). A dependent clause also normally contains a subordinating conjunction (or in the case of relative clauses, a relative pronoun, or phrase containing one).
The following sentences illustrate some uses of gerund clauses, showing how such a clause serves as a noun within the larger sentence. In some cases, the clause consists of just the gerund (although in many such cases the word could equally be analyzed as a pure verbal noun). Swimming is fun. (gerund as subject of the sentence) I like swimming.
For all uses of specific perfect constructions, see the sections below on the present perfect, past perfect, future perfect, and conditional perfect. By using non-finite forms of the auxiliary have , perfect aspect can also be marked on infinitives (as in should have left and expect to have finished working ), and on participles and gerunds (as ...
A clause is often said to be the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. [1] But this semantic idea of a clause leaves out much of English clause syntax. For example, clauses can be questions, [2]: 161 but questions are not propositions. [3] A syntactic description of an English clause is that it is a subject and a ...