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(1) I saw him crying just now. (2) With more people volunteering to join us, we are going to help more people in the community.

So, both of these sentences make use of present participle (crying in number 1 and volunteering in number 2). Am I correct if I suggest that the present participle in number 1 is a verb and that in number 2 is an adjective?

Thank you in advance.

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    They are both verbs heading subordinate gerund-participial clauses. "Crying just now " is complement of "saw" and "volunteering to join us" is modifying "people". – BillJ Jan 5 at 14:52
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There are largely five sentence structures.

  1. S+V : I run.
  2. S+V+C : I am a boy. He is tall.
  3. S+V+O : I study English
  4. S+V+IO+DO : I gave him a book.
  5. S+V+O+OC : I saw him cry (or I saw him crying)- the person who cries is "him"

saw him crying gives more information and emphasize : When you saw him, he was crying.

*IO=Indirect Objective (1) I saw him crying just now. (2) With more people volunteering to join us, we are going to help more people in the community.

with participial phrase

with+person+present participle : with the students (who are) coming to my class

with+thing+past participle : with my eyes (which are) closed

The purpose of participial phrase is to make the sentence short, so (who are) and (which are) almost always omitted.

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  • In 5. "cry" and "crying" are not object complements, but catenative clauses functioning as complement of "saw". Object complements are always either AdjPs as in "They painted the house white" or NPs, as in "They elected him president". – BillJ Jan 5 at 18:56
  • No; simplistic grammars over-simplify. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 4 at 19:07

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