Questions tagged [present-participles]
Questions about the present-participle form of verbs.
23 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
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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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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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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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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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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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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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'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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1
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Use of Present Participle
I am trying to understand how to interpret the meaning of the following sentence,
John arrived late to the airport, causing him to miss his flight
I know that the present participle modifies the ...
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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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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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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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"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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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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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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Can I use a present participle clause to express a condition?
According to the books I have read, the present participle clauses can be used to talk about:
-Things happening at the same time as, or just before, the main action.
-Result of the action in the ...
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Adverb as a modifier 2
This post is related to a question I asked earlier, link to which is below
Present participle as a modifier
Actually I had this doubt after visiting a website, the link to which I have given below. ...
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2
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Is there any logic behind continuing to distinguish 'gerund' from 'present participle' in traditional grammar?
To an earlier question "What's the difference between a gerund and a participle?", there is a consensus among the answers there, and I quote the most upvoted answer:
A gerund is a form of a ...
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participles as object complements
Can participles or participial phrases serve as object complements in traditional grammar? And are direct objects viewed as a type of complement in traditional grammar?
I'd appreciate reference to ...
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Is it correct to say "X is a Y, doing Z"?
Not sure how to best put this in words, but I'll give an example below. This is from a boilerplate text of a company:
ABC is a manufacturing company, partnering with DEF to...
I would be inclined ...
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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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Present Participle or Past Continuous?
A decade ago, nearly a million and a half elephants were living in Africa.
Does the word'living' act as a present participle or verb of past continous
Please explain it to me.