VERBALS

262. Verbals are words that express action in a general way, without limiting the action to any time, or asserting it of any subject

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.
HOW TO PARSE VERBS AND VERBALS.
I. VERBS.

275. In parsing verbs, give the following points:—

(1) Class: (a) as to form,—strong or weak, giving principal parts; (b) as to use,—transitive or intransitive.

(2) Voice,—active or passive.

(3) Mood,—indicative, subjunctive, or imperative.

(4) Tense,—which of the tenses given in Sec. 234.

(5) Person and number, in determining which you must tell—

(6) What the subject is, for the form of the verb may not show the person and number.
Caution.

276. It has been intimated in Sec. 235, we must beware of the rule, "A verb agrees with its subject in person and number." Sometimes it does; usually it does not, if agrees means that the verb changes its form for the different persons and numbers. The verb be has more forms than other verbs, and may be said to agree with its subject in several of its forms. But unless the verb is present, and ends in -s, or is an old or poetic form ending in -st or -eth, it is best for the student not to state it as a general rule that "the verb agrees with its subject in person and number," but merely to tell what the subject of the verb is.
II. VERB PHRASES.

277. Verb phrases are made up of a principal verb followed by an infinitive, and should always be analyzed as phrases, and not taken as single verbs. Especially frequent are those made up of should, would, may, might, can, could, must, followed by a pure infinitive without to. Take these examples:—

1. Lee should of himself have replenished his stock.

2. The government might have been strong and prosperous.

In such sentences as 1, call should a weak verb, intransitive, therefore active; indicative, past tense; has for its subject Lee. Have replenished is a perfect active infinitive.

In 2, call might a weak verb, intransitive, active, indicative (as it means could), past tense; has the subject government. Have been is a perfect active infinitive.

For fuller parsing of the infinitive, see Sec. 278(2).
III. VERBALS.

278. (1) Participle. Tell (a) from what verb it is derived; (b) whether active or passive, imperfect, perfect, etc.; (c) to what word it belongs. If a participial adjective, give points (a) and (b), then parse it as an adjective.

(2) Infinitive. Tell (a) from what verb it is derived; (b) whether indefinite, perfect, definite, etc.

(3) Gerund. (a) From what verb derived; (b) its use (Sec. 273).
Exercise.

Parse the verbs, verbals, and verb phrases in the following sentences:—

1. Byron builds a structure that repeats certain elements in nature or humanity.

2. The birds were singing as if there were no aching hearts, no sin nor sorrow, in the world.

3. Let it rise! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit.

4. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance.

5. Read this Declaration at the head of the army.

6.
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing,
Down all the line, a deafening shout, "God save our Lord the King!"

7. When he arose in the morning, he thought only of her, and wondered if she were yet awake.

8. He had lost the quiet of his thoughts, and his agitated soul reflected only broken and distorted images of things.

9.
So, lest I be inclined
To render ill for ill,
Henceforth in me instill,
O God, a sweet good will.

10. The sun appears to beat in vain at the casements.

11. Margaret had come into the workshop with her sewing, as usual.

12.
Two things there are with memory will abide—
Whatever else befall—while life flows by.

13. To the child it was not permitted to look beyond into the hazy lines that bounded his oasis of flowers.

14. With them, morning is not a new issuing of light, a new bursting forth of the sun; a new waking up of all that has life, from a sort of temporary death.

15. Whatever ground you sow or plant, see that it is in good condition.

16. However that be, it is certain that he had grown to delight in nothing else than this conversation.

17. The soul having been often born, or, as the Hindoos say, "traveling the path of existence through thousands of births," there is nothing of which she has not gained knowledge.

18. The ancients called it ecstasy or absence,—a getting-out of their bodies to think.

19. Such a boy could not whistle or dance.

20. He had rather stand charged with the imbecility of skepticism than with untruth.

21. He can behold with serenity the yawning gulf between the ambition of man and his power of performance.

22. He passed across the room to the washstand, leaving me upon the bed, where I afterward found he had replaced me on being awakened by hearing me leap frantically up and down on the floor.

23. In going for water, he seemed to be traveling over a desert plain to some far-off spring.

24. Hasheesh always brings an awakening of perception which magnifies the smallest sensation.

25. I have always talked to him as I would to a friend.

26. Over them multitudes of rosy children came leaping to throw garlands on my victorious road.

27. Oh, had we some bright little isle of our own!

28.
Better it were, thou sayest, to consent;
Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent.

29. And now wend we to yonder fountain, for the hour of rest is at hand.