Verb Forms: Participles & Infinitives

Using verbs correctly involves knowing more than just how to express action in
a sentence. This lesson will show you a few special types of verb forms infinitives, present participles, and past participles - as well as how to use them.
Verb Forms
When we remember the days when we first learned about grammar, we tend to
think about a few of the basic parts of speech, like nouns, verbs and adjectives,
and we may kind of think that as long as we know what those words mean, then
we basically know all that we need to know.
The rules of grammar can get a bit more complicated than that, though. But
there's good news: it takes just a bit of studying to understand the more specific
forms of various parts of speech and how to use them. Today we'll explore the
exciting world of verb forms.
Infinitives
You may recall that a verb is a word that expresses an action or occurrence.
There are a few different types of verb forms that you'll want to be able to
identify and use correctly in sentences. One type of verb form is theinfinitive,
which consists of the word 'to' plus the base form of a verb. You can think of an
infinitive as kind of the raw form of a verb that hasn't been conjugated, paired
up with a subject or assigned a verb tense.
Examples of infinitives include:

to run

to go

to worry

to be

to drive

An infinitive phrase consists of an infinitive plus any additional words that

describe the action expressed by the infinitive. For example, the phrase 'to get
up early tomorrow' is an infinitive phrase. Another example is 'to get a new job.'
One important thing to remember about infinitives is that you can't have an
infinitive phrase hanging out by itself, as it would be a sentence fragment, or
incomplete sentence. That makes sense because if you were to announce, 'To get
a new job!' or 'To get up early tomorrow!' and then run off, you'd leave people
confused by your incomplete idea.
Because an infinitive is a sort of raw form of a verb, that means that we would
have to do something to an infinitive for it to function as the main verb in a
sentence, or that we would have to use the infinitive in some other way - not as
the main verb.
Take the infinitive 'to conquer,' for example. As I mentioned, it wouldn't work to
use this raw form as a main verb in a sentence. I wouldn't say, 'Jane finally to
conquer her fear of kittens.' I could, however, use the past tense form of the verb
and say, 'Jane finally conquered her fear of kittens.'
I could also say, 'Joe conquers cockroaches for a living,' or 'Sandy will conquer
her math test on Friday.' In these sentences, I haven't used the infinitive raw
form 'to conquer.' Instead, I've used forms of it as main verbs, and I've made
sure that my subjects agree with my verbs and that I've used the right verb tense
each time.
Keep in mind that you can use infinitives in sentences. You just can't use them
as main verbs. For example, I could use an infinitive as the subject of a
sentence: 'To study grammar is the best possible thing one can do.' In this
sentence, the complete subject is the infinitive phrase 'to study grammar,' and
the verb is 'is.'

Present Participles
Another type of verb form that has a few special rules for usage in sentences is
the participle. There are two types of participles. A present participle is a verb
form that ends with -ing. Present participles are often used as adjectives. You
may recall that an adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun.
An example of a present participle is the word 'sleeping.' Here's how it would be
used as an adjective in a sentence: 'The sleeping dog twitched its tail.' Here, the
present participle 'sleeping' describes the noun 'dog.'
Present participles can be used as verbs, but they aren't complete verbs when
used by themselves. Just as with infinitives, you can't use a present participle as
the main verb by itself in a sentence. You'd need to add something to it. For
example, you wouldn't say, 'Jamal studying for his test.' This is technically an
incomplete sentence, or sentence fragment.
You'd need to add something to the present participle 'studying.' In this case,
you would add a helping verb - a form of the verb 'to be.' A corrected version of
this sentence would be 'Jamal is studying for his test.'
Past Participles
There's a second type of participle, and the rules are somewhat similar. A past
participle is a verb form that usually ends with -ed or -d. Some verbs, called
irregular verbs, don't follow the typical patterns that most verbs do. Irregular
verbs have past participles with a variety of endings that don't necessarily
follow a set pattern. That's because irregular verbs are - you guessed it irregular. Many past participles end with -t, -en, -n or -ne, though that's not a
complete list.
Some examples of irregular verbs are:

choose

fall

fly

ring

Past participles of regular verbs look like the past tense version of the same
verbs. For example, both the past tense and the past participle of the verb 'to
look' is 'looked.' Some irregular verbs are exceptions to this rule; their past
participles are different from their past tense verb forms. Note that the past tense
of 'choose' is 'chose,' while the past participle is 'chosen.' The past tense of 'fall'
is 'fell,' while the past participle is 'fallen.' The past tense of 'fly' is 'flew,' while
the past participle is 'flown.' The past tense of 'ring' is 'rang,' while the past
participle is 'rung.'
Past participles, just like present participles, can be used as adjectives. For
example, we could use the past participle 'embarrassed' as an adjective like this:
'The embarrassed student grabbed her papers and ran from the room.' Here, the
past participle 'embarrassed' describes the noun 'student.' Another example of a
past participle is 'broken.' We could use it as an adjective like this: 'The children
tried to hide the broken lamp.'
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Comparison of Adjectives & Adverbs: Examples, Sentences & Exercises

Adjectives and adverbs are descriptive words that allow our sentences to be
much more specific and interesting than they would be without them. This
lesson covers the rules for using adjectives and adverbs correctly, including
those used in comparisons.
What are Adjectives and Adverbs?
You may think that studying grammar and composition is no fun. You may wish
you were doing something else. You may want to skip right over the studying
part and get to the point where you know what you need to know about writing.
You may have a fiery, hot, maddening hatred for thinking about mindnumbingly boring parts of speech, and you may fly into a murderous, over-thetop fit of deeply insane rage at the mere thought of having to study grammar.
Regardless of your feelings about grammar, you can probably admit that that
last sentence is a bit more interesting and descriptive than many other ways you
might discuss the subject. That sentence includes a lot of adjectives and adverbs
that provide some colorful description of the way some people might express
their feelings about grammar.
An adjective describes, or modifies, a noun or pronoun. An adverb describes, or
modifies, a verb, adjective, or other adverb. In this lesson, we'll take a look at
the rules governing how to use adjectives and adverbs as well as some examples
of each.
Adjectives
You may recall learning in school that adjectives answer the questions Which
one?, What kind?, and How many?Let's think about the first of these questions:
Which one?, and about what types of adjectives answer this question.

There's a category of adjectives called demonstrative adjectives, which identify

particular nouns and pronouns. Think about when you're talking with someone
and you have to demonstrate what exactly you're talking about. Let's say you
want to tell a friend which car is yours in the parking lot. You might point to
your car to demonstrate that it's yours, and you might say, That car is mine.
In that sentence, the word 'that' is a demonstrative adjective that modifies the
noun 'car.'
The word 'that' works to identify something in the sentence, and to answer the
question Which one? The demonstrative adjectives this and that can identify
singular nouns and pronouns, and the demonstrative adjectives these and those
can identify plural nouns.
Most adjectives answer the question What kind? by offering descriptions of
nouns and pronouns. Think for a minute about how you might describe a book
by explaining what kind of book it is. You might describe a book with the
adjectives red, huge, scary, hilarious, or important.
If you use several adjectives to describe a noun, be sure to separate those
adjectives with commas. For example, you might say, I just started a new,
exciting, challenging job. Note that the adjectives 'new,' 'exciting,' and
'challenging' are separated by commas.
Finally, adjectives can also answer the question How many?, and they can do so
in a specific or general way. So, if I tell you that I have two cats, the word 'two'
is an adjective that describes the noun 'cats.' I can speak more generally, though,
and tell you that I have some spare quarters. or that I have lived in many
different states. Each of the words that tell how many in those sentences - 'two,'
'some,' and 'many' - is an adjective.
Adverbs

As I mentioned earlier, an adverb describes, or modifies, a verb, adjective, or

other adverb. Adverbs answer questions like When?, Where?, Why?, How?, and
To what extent?
Here are some examples of adverbs in sentences.
I carefully carried the stack of books across the room. Here, the adverb
'carefully' modifies the verb 'carried' to answer the question How? She
completely destroyed her new car. Here, the adverb 'completely' modifies the
verb 'destroyed' to answer the question To what extent? The new father lowered
the baby into her crib very slowly. Here, we have two adverbs. The adverb
'slowly' modifies the verb 'lowered,' and the adverb 'very' modifies the adverb
'slowly.' These modifiers answer the question How?
The teacher became very angry with her students. Here, the adverb 'very'
modifies the adjective 'angry' to answer the question To what extent? Many
adverbs, though not all, end in -ly, and there are some adjectives and other nonadverb words that end in '-ly.' You can often spot an adverb because it looks like
a similar adjective, but with an '-ly' at the end. For example, the word quiet is an
adjective, and the word quietly is an adverb. The wordslow is an adjective, and
the word slowly is an adverb. The word rude is an adjective, and the word
rudely is an adverb.
As you get the hang of which modifiers are adjectives and which ones are
adverbs, remember the rules about which types of words they modify. For
example, you would say, He slept in the quiet room, or He quietly walked down
the hall. In the first sentence, the adjective 'quiet' describes the noun 'room.' In
the second sentence, the adverb 'quietly' describes the verb 'walked.'
Comparatives and Superlatives
We can make comparisons between and among things and people by using
adjectives and adverbs. We use thecomparative form of an adjective or adverb

to compare two people or things. To form a comparative, you'll need to use an

-er ending or the word more.
We use the superlative form of an adjective or adverb to compare more than two
people or things. To form a superlative, you'll need to use an -est ending or the
word most. Here are some examples of how to do this. You might use adjectives
to form the following sentence: Studying grammar is a great, exciting way to
spend my time.
This next sentence makes use of the comparative forms of these adjectives: I
could watch a movie, but studying grammar is the greater, more exciting way to
spend my time. Note that here, you're comparing two things: watching a movie
and studying grammar.
This last sentence makes use of the superlative forms of these same adjectives:
Studying grammar is the greatest, most exciting way that I have ever spent my
time. In this sentence, we're using the superlative form to compare more than
two things: studying grammar and everything else that the speaker has ever
done.
You may have noticed that the adjective 'great' takes an '-er' and '-est,'
respectively, to form the comparative and superlative, while the adjective
'exciting' needs a 'more' and a 'most' to be formed correctly. Be sure never to
double up with your formations of comparatives and superlatives. In other
words, you wouldn't ever use '-er' and 'more', or '-est' and 'most.' So, you'd never
say that Studying grammar is the most greatest, most excitingest way I have
ever spent my time.
There are a few quick rules that can come in handy as you try to figure out
which way you should form comparatives and superlatives.