Content
- The infinitive
- The participle
- The gerund
- Examples of infinitive
- Examples of participles
- Examples of gerunds
The infinitive, gerund and participle They are the three non-personal forms of the verb, that is, those that do not admit conjugation and therefore are not defined by the characteristics of the verb (time, mood, number and person). For example: sleep (infinitive), sleeping (gerund), asleep (participle).
The non-personal forms of the verb are also called verboids and have the particularity of not occupying the usual function of the verb but instead take on another role in the sentence:
- Gerunds work like adverbs.
For example: We arrived walking. - Infinitives function as a noun.
For example: I really like to sing. - The participles work like adjectives.
For example: He dated a married woman.
The infinitive
The infinitive is usually understood as the elemental form of the verb, to which no inflection has yet been applied.
However, there are times when the infinitive appears in the sentence and this is when you want to talk about the action as an autonomous subject. In these cases it works as a noun and fulfills its syntactic roles. For example: Walking is very healthy. ("walk" is the subject of the sentence)
Infinitives also appear in the sentence when a compound verb is being used, or a sentence in which one verb requires another. For example: I have to be, I begin to understand.
The participle
The participles are those forms in which the verb becomes an adjective. In this case, the verb comes to represent a state that can be assigned to a noun, usually with the ending -ido or -ado, but sometimes (the "irregular" endings) with the ending -erto, -elto, - this.
The participles are also used in compound tenses, after the verb have. For example: we have arrived, you had met.
The participle often comes in a continuation of some inflection of the verb ‘ser’ or ‘estar’, as usually happens in adjectives. It is the only one of the verboids that can have an inflection in gender and number. For example: tired, tired, tired, tired.
The gerund
Gerunds are, among verbs, the ones that most resemble verbs because at some point they continue to represent an action: the difference it has with conjugated verbs is that it is not defined by the characteristics of the verb, which are time, the mode, the number and the person.
Gerunds are constructed by adding the ending -ando or -endo as appropriate. For example: studying, reading.
A gerund will never be presented in a simple form, it will always require a verb to precede it (any action verb) where the gerund fulfills the function of an adverb. For example: It's raining, I came running
Examples of infinitive
| Run | Leave |
| To play | Need |
| Depart | Undertake |
| Say | Fantasize |
| Depress | Have wished |
| Have started | Recreate |
| Greet | Recognize |
| Witness | Start |
| Understand | Dance |
| To die | Announce |
- More examples in: Verbs in the infinitive
Examples of participles
| Past | Resigned |
| Recognized | Gone |
| Constructed | Bet |
| Having missed | Rebooted |
| Turned | Have opened |
| Deposed | Have decided |
| Sawn | Slandered |
| Having massacred | Have awakened |
| Have tried | Set on fire |
| Started | Greeted |
- More examples in: Verbs in participle
Examples of gerunds
| Came in screaming | Ended up quitting |
| It moves understanding | Study reading |
| Is eating | I escaped by digging |
| Is leaving | Keep marching |
| I'm understanding | It's beginning |
| You are bothering | Thinking decided |
| He runs away | It has been |
| Channel singing | Died fighting |
| Heard him confessing | Says raising his voice |
| I was remembering | Is being born |
- More examples in: Gerund verbs
