Questions tagged [present-participles]
Questions about the present-participle form of verbs.
233 questions
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confusion of present participle [migrated]
I apologize for asking the same question multiple times, but I’m still unclear about the different uses of the present participle. I would greatly appreciate your patience and understanding as I ...
4
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1
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Can 'Find' Be Classified as a Perceptual Verb?
I am an English instructor from Korea. I understand that perceptual verbs in a five-element sentence structure can take a bare infinitive or a present participle as the object complement. Can "...
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Does description need to be next to the noun when using a comma?
I'm confused as to whether the participial clause (in this case "enhancing the portfolio's value") needs to be placed next to what it describes (in this case "the two"). So my ...
2
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About V-ing as adverbials of respect
I'm currently reading 'A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language' by Randolph Quirk et al, and there's this section that I can't make sense of. He defines an 'adverbial of respect' as
an ...
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What Is the Function of the Participle Clause in 'Time + -ing'?
[1] My time working in the US was eventful, to say the least.'
In Example 1, I have used a participial-gerund clause (or present participle clause, if you prefer) alongside the noun 'time,' and I'm ...
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what is the difference between "detail" and "detailing"? [closed]
I am an English language learner, so please forgive me for some errors in expression.
I am confused about the difference/s in meaning between nouns "detail" and "detailing". These ...
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51
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Difference between gerund and a present participle [duplicate]
I saw him dancing. In this sentence is dancing a present participle or a gerund?
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Participle clauses in between the main clause? [closed]
can we use a participle clause in between the main clause?
for example:
The restaurant will open next week and employ 10 people.
The restaurant, opening next week, will employ 10 people. -- used in ...
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Continuous form of verb or Present participle? [duplicate]
Expanded version:
Nobody likes to talk with the man who is sitting on the rock alone.
Reduced version:
Nobody likes to talk with the man sitting on the rock alone.
How is it possible that in the ...
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Is the present participle incorrect in sentences like "I will run one mile to reach my target, grabbing him"?
Is it okay (in terms of usage) to use present participle clause for an action that follows another action as a result?
For instance, the following sentence seems correct to me:
The bomb will explode, ...
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'Painted' or 'painting' after 'want' + NP
Which is correct? Is it, "Do you want your house painting" or "Do you want your house painted"? Examples of both can be found on the internet.
Is there a difference between them? ...
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Can you use two present participles in the same sentence? [duplicate]
Which of the following sentences would be correct?
Seeing them eating the cake made me hungry.
Seeing them eat the cake made me hungry.
The second sentence seems correct to me, but I'm not sure.
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Can a present-participle (compound) verb which could function as an adjective be further modified with -ly become an adverb?
For example, if the height of an platform is such as to be sickness-inducing, then could the platform be said to be sickness-inducingly high?
Or take the example of mind-boggling -> mind-bogglingly....
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Can a gerund immediately follow a present participle? [duplicate]
For example:
“Academic integrity violations include any action involving distributing course materials to others.”
I understand “involving” to be a present participle, because it functions as an ...
3
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How did -ing become a suffix for both present participles and nouns derived from verbs?
In non-modern and non-Middle-English Germanic languages, present participles and nouns derived from verbs look and sound very different:
English: wend - wending - wending
Middle English: wenden - ...
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3
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Unusual sentence construction in meditation app
I'm using a meditation app called "Headspace" and I recently started to notice a rather unusual construction that the teachers use in their guided meditations, and I'm wondering whether it's ...
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Present participle result
I need your valuable comments on the following two sentences regarding the meaning of participle clauses:
Economists often criticize rent control, arguing that it is a highly inefficient way to help ...
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3
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Is 'a deceiving look’ grammatically correct?
Is ‘a deceiving look’ grammatically sound? Cambridge dictionary says that ‘deceiving’ is not an adjective, deceitful and deceptive are, but the given example seems fine to me. I see the word ‘...
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Present participle modifier modifying another present participle modifier
A desecrated B, provoking riots.
In the aforementioned sentence, " provoking riots" modifies the previous clause.
A desecrated B, provoking riots, forcing the riot police to intervene
Here, ...
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0
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present participle in there be sentences [duplicate]
"There is a man sitting under the tree. "
How to explain the "sitting" grammatically?
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Is ‘when regarding’ in this sentence a preposition, meaning on the subject of/ in respect to, or a verb meaning thinking of/considering?
A recent troubling MIT study, revealed that fake news diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper and more broadly than the truth, with the effect even more pronounced when regarding political news ...
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2
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Is 'being' omitted in certain participle clauses and absolute constructions?
In literature (particularly fiction), there will often be examples of supplementary adjectives and absolute constructions in which a participle isn't present. My question boils down to how we analyse ...
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43
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Present participle in sentences like "workers using"
I was wondering whether these sentences are grammatically correct and whether they mean the same thing.
There are no workers who are using these tools right now.
There are no workers using these ...
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0
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Participle Phrase vs. That/Which [closed]
In recent writing and editing, I noticed that a participle phrase can sometimes be used interchangeably with a that/which phrase, and both options seem equally readable. The following sentences show ...
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2
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Bare infinitive or present participle? [closed]
Which of the following two sentences is correct? The one that uses the bare infinitive 'hear', or the one that uses the present participle 'hearing'?
He heard him snore last night.
Or
He heard him ...
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Should the verb be singular or plural in this sentence? [duplicate]
One thousand old refrigerators floating in the ocean (isn't/aren't) an issue.
Is the subject here "One thousand old refrigerators" or is it the whole phrase "One-thousand old ...
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What is are the distinct names for these verbs: 'Display' and 'Displays' [closed]
Given the statement Click this button to display your presentation and Clicking this button displays your presentation.
I assume both the words display and displays are verbs but what is the name of ...
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Participial phrase separating main verbs
Let's say you have the following sentence:
I stood there and wondered what to do next.
Now, let's say you insert a participial phrase after "there."
I stood there looking at her and wondered ...
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1
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Gerund? or Present participle?
I want to ask about the gerund and present participles on those sentences below.
Mr. Wilkins would like some assistance setting up the audio equipment in the conference room.
Mark offered his full ...
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2
answers
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Was this subject complement diagrammed correctly?
The sentence is the following. I'm focusing on the part in bold:
Feeding the goats is messy and time consuming.
It's in this book.
The author provides the following diagram:
And I think it should ...
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Significance of location in a sentence or absence of comma for purpose of determining noun modified by preposition
In consideration of the following sentence, I have a question about which word is modified by the final preposition, "without charge."
The sentence:
A “thing of value" means any form ...
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1
answer
893
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Present continuous vs present perfect followed by temporal 'for' / 'since'
In a newspaper I read the following sentence:
We are waiting for the past few days with a hope.
Is the grammar correct ...
can we use the present continuous with temporal for and since?
English ...
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66
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Why is the present participle always regular?
Most rules of the English language have some irregularity [citation needed].
Forming the present participle isn't one of them: take the infinitive, and add the suffix -ing (in speech. In writing, it's ...
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Present participle as verb or adjective
(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 ...
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2
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151
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Mixing Past & Present Tense
Original:
"These two peers would later become an advantageous support system for me personally, assisting as I struggled with the structural engineering portion of my internship project at the ...
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Being + P.P construct as progressive form of -ed participle or passive form
Regarding Being + P.P construct:
In The Grammar Book it is described as Progressive:
but the same construct in Cambridge Grammar of English is described as Passive:
Which one is correct?
user147384
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Have difficulty/difficulties (in) doing something
What is syntactically the -ing-phrase in both the versions with and without the preposition? For example in He has trouble [in] keeping things in perspective right now.
Secondly, does the latter ...
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present participle as a parenthesis
There were times, listening to Arnold and narrowing his eyes in the same heat-struck gaze, when Jack felt turned about.
[I.stack.imgur]
What is the function of present participle here?
And why is the ...
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present participles, pronoun [duplicate]
I have difficulty understanding the following sentence:
-Or does it somehow lie behind its properties, supporting them, a solid peg on which they happen to hang.
Please help me grasp what the present ...
0
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0
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"Cannot help" is used with a present participle to roughly the same effect as a verb form in -ing
According to the American Heritage Dictionary,
Cannot help is used with a present participle to
roughly the same effect as a verb form ending in -ing in a sentence
such as We cannot help admiring his ...
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A Specific Case of Infinitive as Adjective
To see him, you would have supposed he had been doing this for years.
Having first thought that to see him was an adverb, I then noticed it wasn’t exactly doing the work of an adverb and might just as ...
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A question concerned to the participles
The traveller, being weary, sat by the woodside to rest.
My book says the present participle being weary (passive) is used absolutely in the sentence with the noun The traveller. But it's separated by ...
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1
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Passive and active verbal adjective
guys. Hope you are all in greatest condition. I do know that a verb can serve as an adjective when it is placed before a noun and this verb is either a past participle or a present participle in this ...
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Omitting "by" preposition and the resulted phrase
Consider the following examples:
I paid for it by using my credit card.
I was in contact with my friends by sending letters.
I learned how to dance by watching online videos
if I remove the ...
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present participle after a noun
below is the original sentence I would like to say:
"I would like to help the team understand what are the factors that have the potential to sway our financials significantly"
I am ...
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1
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Gerunds/present participles of two-verb compounds
I use making-believe instead of make-believing if I need to make a gerund/present participle out of "make-believe", but I just saw this line:
Brenda rode along, make-believing she was a knight ...
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How to say Lie/Lay [closed]
So, here's another one of the Lay/Lie questions.
How do you say "she is lying quietly on the grass, under the stars." in past tense?
She lay quietly on the grass, under the stars.
She was lying ...
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Present participle as a replacement for "that [verb]"
Are the following statements grammatically correct? If so, are they equivalent in meaning and which is more clear?
"[subject] moves to a location that acts as the main [thing]..."
"[subject] moves to ...
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Present perfect vs past simple
Should I say :
1- I think I know you , I think we have met before.
2- I think I know you , I think we met before.
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Is it a Participial Phrase?
In this sentence:
We saw Paul coming
I don't understand if the verb coming is a present participle.
Thank you!
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