Present Participle/ Participle I Past Participle / Participle II

• My friend doesn’t like either borrowing or lending money. (gerund)
• It wasn’t wise of Martha to agree to that job. (infinitive)
• Nobody saw the boy leaving the house. (participle I)
• Things seen are mightier than things heard. (participle II)

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF NON-FINITE FORMS OF THE VERB

1. Non-finite forms of the verb usually denote a secondary action or a process related to the one expressed by a finite verb.

· Bobby started skating on the frozen lake. (‘started’ – primary action; ‘skating’ – secondary action)

· Fiona decided to leave on Monday. (‘decided’ - primary action; ‘to leave’ - secondary action)

2. The verbals have a double nature: nominal and verbal

participle I and II = verb + adjective

· I saw a smiling girl in the window.

· The book given to me by Peter was not very interesting.

gerund / infinitive = verb + noun

· Learning foreign languages is hard work.

· To learn a foreign language well, one must work hard.

3. The verbals do not express person, number or mood.

4. The verbals have the following distinctions /categories:

a) aspect (Indefinite (Common/ Simple) or Continuous),

b) correlation (Non-Perfect or Perfect)

c) voice (Active or Passive)

5. The verbals seldom function as predicates but are often used as part of predicates, e.g.

· You might have encouraged the kid before the exam. (compound verbal modal predicate with infinitive)

· Jim was painting the bedroom when his wife came home from work. (simple verbal predicate with participle I)

· After that heated discussion the girls looked angry and frustrated. (compound nominal predicate with participle II)

· Kate kept on laughing and splashing water on Jake. (compound verbal aspect predicate with gerund)

SUMMARY OF GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF VERBALS

No	Categories	Forms and examples
	Person	None
	Number	None
	Tense	None
	Aspect	Indefinite (Simple / Common), e.g. Helen may come tomorrow. John appears to be pleased. Continuous, e.g. Peter must be doing his yoga exercises at the moment. Lily seems to be playing quite happily.
	Correlation	Non-Perfect, e.g. All the books must be returned to the library by December 25. Tom seems to enjoy his new job. Perfect, e.g. Jack must have been learning English for a long time, as he knows it so well. Adele is said to have finished her course.
	Mood	None
	Voice	Active, e.g. Marge has to cook all the meals herself. Henry wants to take up a new hobby. Passive, e.g. All the meals in the family have to be cooked by their mother. Hob seems to be paid too much attention to.

VERBALS

ASPECT CORRELATION VOICE

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