##  [Verbals](/hypergrammar-2/verbals)

##  Avertissement

Ce contenu est offert en anglais seulement.

A <a id="verbal">verbal</a> is a [noun](what-is-a-noun#noun) or an [adjective](what-is-an-adjective#adjective) formed from a [verb](what-is-a-verb#whatisverb). Writers sometimes make mistakes by using a verbal in place of a verb or by confusing different types of verbals. There are three types of verbals: the participle (acts as an adjective), the gerund (acts as a noun) and the [infinitive](forming-and-using-verb-tenses) (also acts as a noun).

The fundamental difference between verbals and other nouns and adjectives is that verbals can take [objects](objects-and-complements), as in the following example:

**Gerund** *Building a house* is complicated.The [noun phrase](the-function-of-phrases#phrsubj) *a house* is the direct object of the verbal *building*, which acts a noun rather than a verb.

## The participle

There are two types of participle: present and past.

<a id="presentparticiple">A present participle</a> is an adjective formed from a verb and the suffix *ing*, in some cases [doubling the final consonant](words-with-double-consonants). For example:

- *think* becomes *thinking*
- *fall* becomes *falling*
- *run* becomes *running* (double final consonant)

The second type of participle, the past participle, is a little more complicated as not all verbs form the [past tense](using-verb-tenses) regularly. The following highlighted words are all past participles:

- the *sunken* ship
- a *ruined* city
- a *misspelled* word

Note that only the past participles of [transitive verbs](objects-and-complements#tranintrvb) can be used as adjectives. Unlike other verbals, past participles do not take objects (unless they are part of a [compound verb](compound-verbs#verbcmp)).

## The gerund

A <a id="gerund">gerund</a> is a noun formed from a verb and the suffix *ing* just as is the case for present participles. The fundamental difference is that a gerund is a noun, while a participle is an adjective:

**Gerund** I enjoy *running*. (*Running* is a noun acting as the [direct object](objects-and-complements#directobject) of the verb *enjoy*.) **Participle** Stay away from *running* water. (*Running* is an adjective modifying the noun *water*.)## Using verbals

There are two common difficulties associated with verbals. The first is that since verbals look like verbs, they are sometimes used to write [sentence](subject-and-predicate#sentence) fragments, as in the following examples:

- \[**WRONG**\] Oh, to find true love!
- \[**WRONG**\] Jimmy, swimming the most important race of his life.

The second difficulty is a very fine point that many editors no longer enforce. Although they have the same form, gerunds and present participles are different [parts of speech](the-parts-of-speech#theparts1) and need to be treated differently. For example, consider the following sentences:

- I admire the woman finishing the report.
- I admire the woman’s finishing the report.

In the first example, *finishing* is a participle modifying the noun *woman*: in other words, the writer admires the *woman*, not what she is doing. In the second example, *finishing* is a participle modified by the [possessive noun](what-is-a-noun#posnouns) *woman’s*. The writer admires not the woman herself but the fact that she is finishing the report.

##  Avis de droit d’auteur pour l’outil HyperGrammar 2

© Département d’anglais, Faculté des arts, Université d’Ottawa
Un outil mis en ligne par le Bureau de la traduction, Services publics et Approvisionnement Canada

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## Liens connexes

- [HyperGrammar 2](/fr/hypergrammar-2/index-fra) (page d’accueil)
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