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Humanities › English
The Difference Between Gerunds, Participles, and Infinitives
Verbals in English Grammar: Definitions, Examples, and Exercises
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By
Richard Nordquist
Updated July 17, 2019
A verbal is a word derived from a verb that functions in a sentence as a noun or modifier rather than as a verb. In other words, a verbal is a verb that acts like a different part of speech.
Verbals include infinitives, gerunds (also known as -ing forms), and participles (also known as -ing forms and -en forms). A word group based on a verbal is called a verbal phrase. Each of these verbals is often part of a phrase, which includes related modifiers, objects, and complements.
What Are Participles?
A participle is a verb form that can be used as an adjective to modify nouns and pronouns, as in this example:
The children, crying and exhausted, were guided out of the collapsed house.
Crying is a present participle, formed by adding -ing to the present form of the verb (cry). Exhausted is a past participle, formed by adding -ed to the present form of the verb (exhaust). Both participles modify the subject, children. All present participles end in -ing. The past participles of all regular verbs end in -ed. Irregular verbs, however, have various past participle endings—for instance, thrown, ridden, built, and gone.
A participial phrase is made up of a participle and its modifiers. A participle may be followed by an object, an adverb, a prepositional phrase, an adverb clause, or any combination of these. For example, in the following sentence the participial phrase consists of a present participle (holding), an object (the torch), and an adverb (steadily):
