VERBALS.
Definition.
262. Verbals are words that express action in a general way, without limiting the action to any time, or asserting it of any subject.
Kinds.
Verbals may be participles, infinitives, or gerunds.
PARTICIPLES.
Definition.
263. Participles are adjectival verbals; that is, they either belong to some substantive by expressing action in connection with it, or they express action, and directly modify a substantive, thus having a descriptive force. Notice these functions.
Pure participle in function.
1. At length, wearied by his cries and agitations, and not knowing how to put an end to them, he addressed the animal as if he had been a rational being.—Dwight.
Here wearied and knowing belong to the subject he, and express action in connection with it, but do not describe.
Express action and also describe.
2. Another name glided into her petition—it was that of the wounded Christian, whom fate had placed in the hands of bloodthirsty men, his avowed enemies.—Scott.
Here wounded and avowed are participles, but are used with the same adjectival force that bloodthirsty is (see Sec. 143, 4).
Participial adjectives have been discussed in Sec. 143 (4), but we give further examples for the sake of comparison and distinction.
Fossil participles as adjectives.
3. As learned a man may live in a cottage or a college commmon-room.—Thackeray
4. Not merely to the soldier are these campaigns interesting —Bayne.
5. How charming is divine philosophy!—Milton.
Forms of the participle.
264. Participles, in expressing action, may be active or passive, incomplete (or imperfect), complete (perfect or past), and perfect definite.
They cannot be divided into tenses (present, past, etc.), because they have no tense of their own, but derive their tense from the verb on which they depend; for example,—
1. He walked conscientiously through the services of the day, fulfilling every section the minutest, etc.—De Quincey.
Fulfilling has the form to denote continuance, but depends on the verb walked, which is past tense.
2.
Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,Comes dancing from the East.—Milton.
Dancing here depends on a verb in the present tense.
265. PARTICIPLES OF THE VERB CHOOSE.
ACTIVE VOICE.
Imperfect.
Choosing.
Perfect.
Having chosen.
Perfect definite.
Having been choosing.
PASSIVE VOICE.
Imperfect.
None
Perfect.
Chosen, being chosen, having been chosen.
Perfect definite.
None.
Exercise.
Pick out the participles, and tell whether active or passive, imperfect, perfect, or perfect definite. If pure participles, tell to what word they belong; if adjectives, tell what words they modify.
1. The change is a large process, accomplished within a large and corresponding space, having, perhaps, some central or equatorial line, but lying, like that of our earth, between certain tropics, or limits widely separated.
2. I had fallen under medical advice the most misleading that it is possible to imagine.
3. These views, being adopted in a great measure from my mother, were naturally the same as my mother's.
4. Endowed with a great command over herself, she soon obtained an uncontrolled ascendency over her people.
5. No spectacle was more adapted to excite wonder.
6. Having fully supplied the demands of nature in this respect, I returned to reflection on my situation.
7. Three saplings, stripped of their branches and bound together at their ends, formed a kind of bedstead.
8. This all-pervading principle is at work in our system,—the creature warring against the creating power.
9. Perhaps I was too saucy and provoking.
10. Nothing of the kind having been done, and the principles of this unfortunate king having been distorted,... try clemency.
INFINITIVES.
266. Infinitives, like participles, have no tense. When active, they have an indefinite, an imperfect, a perfect, and a perfect definite form; and when passive, an indefinite and a perfect form, to express action unconnected with a subject.
267. INFINITIVES OF THE VERB CHOOSE.
ACTIVE VOICE.
Indefinite.
[To] choose.
Imperfect.
[To] be choosing.
Perfect.
[To] have chosen.
Perfect definite.
[To] have been choosing.
PASSIVE VOICE.
Indefinite.
[To] be chosen.
Perfect.
[To] have been chosen.
To with the infinitive.
268. In Sec. 267 the word to is printed in brackets because it is not a necessary part of the infinitive.
It originally belonged only to an inflected form of the infinitive, expressing purpose; as in the Old English, "Ūt ēode se sǣdere his sæd tō sāwenne" (Out went the sower his seed to sow).
Cases when to is omitted.
But later, when inflections became fewer, to was used before the infinitive generally, except in the following cases:—
(1) After the auxiliaries shall, will (with should and would).
(2) After the verbs may (might), can (could), must; also let, make, do (as, "I do go" etc.), see, bid (command), feel, hear, watch, please; sometimes need (as, "He need not go") and dare (to venture).
(3) After had in the idiomatic use; as, "You had better go" "He had rather walk than ride."
(4) In exclamations; as in the following examples:—
"He find pleasure in doing good!" cried Sir William.—Goldsmith.
I urge an address to his kinswoman! I approach her when in a base disguise! I do this!—Scott.
"She ask my pardon, poor woman!" cried Charles.—Macaulay.
269. Shall and will are not to be taken as separate verbs, but with the infinitive as one tense of a verb; as, "He will choose," "I shall have chosen," etc.
Also do may be considered an auxiliary in the interrogative, negative, and emphatic forms of the present and past, also in the imperative; as,—
What! doth she, too, as the credulous imagine, learn [doth learn is one verb, present tense] the love of the great stars? —Bulwer.
Do not entertain so weak an imagination—Burke.
She did not weep—she did not break forth into reproaches.—Irving.
270. The infinitive is sometimes active in form while it is passive in meaning, as in the expression, "a house to let." Examples are,—
She was a kind, liberal woman; rich rather more than needed where there were no opera boxes to rent.—De Quincey.
Tho' it seems my spurs are yet to win.—Tennyson.
But there was nothing to do.—Howells.
They shall have venison to eat, and corn to hoe.—Cooper.
Nolan himself saw that something was to pay.—E. E. Hale.
271. The various offices which the infinitive and the participle have in the sentence will be treated in Part II., under "Analysis," as we are now learning merely to recognize the forms.
GERUNDS.
272. The gerund is like the participle in form, and like a noun in use.
The participle has been called an adjectival verbal; the gerund may be called a noun verbal. While the gerund expresses action, it has several attributes of a noun,—it may be governed as a noun; it may be the subject of a verb, or the object of a verb or a preposition; it is often preceded by the definite article; it is frequently modified by a possessive noun or pronoun.
Distinguished from participle and verbal noun.
273. It differs from the participle in being always used as a noun: it never belongs to or limits a noun.
It differs from the verbal noun in having the property of governing a noun (which the verbal noun has not) and of expressing action (the verbal noun merely names an action, Sec. II).
The following are examples of the uses of the gerund:—
(1) Subject: "The taking of means not to see another morning had all day absorbed every energy;" "Certainly dueling is bad, and has been put down."
(2) Object: (a) "Our culture therefore must not omit the arming of the man." (b) "Nobody cares for planting the poor fungus;" "I announce the good of being interpenetrated by the mind that made nature;" "The guilt of having been cured of the palsy by a Jewish maiden."
(3) Governing and Governed: "We are far from having exhausted the significance of the few symbols we use," also (2, b), above; "He could embellish the characters with new traits without violating probability;" "He could not help holding out his hand in return."
Exercise.—Find sentences containing five participles, five infinitives, and five gerunds.
SUMMARY OF WORDS IN -ING
274. Words in -ing are of six kinds, according to use as well as meaning. They are as follows:—
(1) Part of the verb, making the definite tenses.
(2) Pure participles, which express action, but do not assert.
(3) Participial adjectives, which express action and also modify.
(4) Pure adjectives, which have lost all verbal force.
(5) Gerunds, which express action, may govern and be governed.
(6) Verbal nouns, which name an action or state, but cannot govern.
Exercise.
Tell to which of the above six classes each -ing word in the following sentences belongs:—
1. Here is need of apologies for shortcomings.
2. Then how pleasing is it, on your leaving the spot, to see the returning hope of the parents, when, after examining the nest, they find the nurslings untouched!
3. The crowning incident of my life was upon the bank of the Scioto Salt Creek, in which I had been unhorsed by the breaking of the saddle girths.
4. What a vast, brilliant, and wonderful store of learning!
5. He is one of the most charming masters of our language.
6. In explaining to a child the phenomena of nature, you must, by object lessons, give reality to your teaching.
7. I suppose I was dreaming about it. What is dreaming?
8. It is years since I heard the laughter ringing.
9. Intellect is not speaking and logicizing: it is seeing and ascertaining.
10. We now draw toward the end of that great martial drama which we have been briefly contemplating.
11. The second cause of failure was the burning of Moscow.
12. He spread his blessings all over the land.
13. The only means of ascending was by my hands.
14. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb, round which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem.
15. The exertion left me in a state of languor and sinking.
16. Thackeray did not, like Sir Walter Scott, write twenty pages without stopping, but, dictating from his chair, he gave out sentence by sentence, slowly.
