Before you learn about verbals, it is important to quickly review some parts of speech. You should become familiar with these basic parts of speech because verbals are verb forms which function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.

For more detail about parts of speech, read the Parts of Speech Overview (opens in new window).

Think of a verbal as a basic part of speech that has been dressed up in a costume to act like something else. The three types of verbals are gerunds (functioning as nouns), participles (functioning as adjectives), and infinitives (functioning as nouns, adjectives, and adverbs).

1. Gerunds are used as nouns and are verb forms ending in -ing. You will find gerunds as subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, and objects of a preposition[4].
   • Running is good exercise. (running is the subject)
   • I do not like running. (running is the direct object)
     
     
2. Participles are used as adjectives and are verb forms ending in -ing (present participles) or -ed (past participles). As adjectives, participles answer the questions that any other adjective answers: which one, what kind, how many, or how much.
   
   Present participle (-ing):
   • The running water flooded the basement.
   • Knowing he would be in trouble, he still took the keys.
     
     This example is a little bit tricky. "Knowing he would be in trouble" is a group of words called a participial phrase. This group of words, as a whole, describes he in the sentence—it tells us what he is thinking as he takes the keys. Knowing is the verbal or participle that introduces this phrase and helps us identify it as a participial phrase.

Past participle (-ed):

• The panicked child ran home.
• He spread whipped topping onto the cake.

3. Infinitives act as a noun, adjective, or adverb and are formed by using to with the verb base.
   • To run every day is good for your health.
   • He came to enjoy her company.

Be sure to study Section 1.6 carefully before completing the assignment. You can look on page 780 of your text for more examples and to complete practice exercises. On page 100, you will find another explanation of participles and participial phrases (see Solution 3).

Assignment 1.6

Complete the Assignment 1.6 Quiz on verbals in the Lesson One Assignments folder.

[4] The object in a sentence is the thing that is acted on in the sentence. Sometimes the object is directly affected (direct object). Sometimes it is indirectly affected (indirect object). See the page R49 entry in your text under "Complement" for a review of these concepts if you need it. Look on pages R51-R52 under both "Phrase" and "Preposition" to review prepositions and prepositional phrases. The object of a preposition is the noun or pronoun that follows a preposition such as up, with, before, through, and around.