Gerund Phrases

Source: Cover: Writing Your Life Story, fredericknoronha, Flickr

Gerunds are not always one word.

Sometimes, they are part of a gerund phrase.
A gerund phrase begins with a gerund and includes modifiers and objects.

Gerund phrases also function as nouns in three different ways. In the next list, the entire
gerund phrase is red.

Subject: Walking up hills is also a great form of exercise.

Direct object: I really hate walking up hills.

Object of a preposition: You can improve your muscle tone by walking up hills.

Again, if you can substitute the word “it” for the phrase and if the sentence makes
sense, the phrase is a gerund phrase. For example:

1. It is also a great form of exercise.

2. I really hate it.
3. You can improve your muscle tone by it. (This is a little awkward but
grammatically correct!)
Participles are verb forms or verbals that end in -ing or -ed, -en, or -d and function as a
different part of speech, usually as an adjective but sometimes as an adverb. There are
two kinds of participles: present participles andpast participles.

Present Participles
Present participles end in -ing. For example, read the following sentences:
 Giggling children never fail to brighten my day.
 Giggling acts as an adjective and modifies children.

Present participles can be tricky because they are easily confused with gerunds.
However, you can use the “it” trick you learned in the section on gerunds to clear up any
confusion in a sentence, such as the one that follows from the example above:

 It children never fail to brighten my day.

(This sentence makes no sense whatsoever, so you know giggling is a
participle and not a gerund in this sentence.)

Participial Phrases
Past participles end in -ed, -en, or -d as shown in the following sentence:

1. Can you believe that crushed bugs are used in red food dye?
(The participle crushed acts as an adjective to modify bugs.)

2. Their proven skills gave the team an advantage.

(The participle proven acts as an adjective to modify skills.)

Just as gerunds can become gerund phrases, participles can become participial
phrases. A participial phrase begins with the participle and is followed by other modifiers
or objects.

3. Disappointed by their loss, the football team rushed straight to the bus after the
game.
(Disappointed is not a verb here. The phrase describes (modifies) the football
team; the verb is the word “rushed.”)
Compare that sentence to this one:
 The loss disappointed the football team, who rushed straight to the bus after the
game.
(In this sentence, both disappointed and rushed act as verbs.)

The sentences are essentially the same, but the sentence with the participle is more
concise because the focus is the second verb, rushed, and not
both disappointed and rushed.
Infinitives
An infinitive is made up of the word to plus a verb. Just like gerunds and participles,
infinitives can form their own kind of phrases, infinitive phrases.

An infinitive can function in several ways: as a noun, adjective, or adverb.

Infinitive as noun: Consider “Jen loves to sing in the rain.”

(to sing is the object of the verb loves. What does Jen love? She loves to sing.)

Infinitive as adjective: In “Lucy always takes a book to read on the subway,”

(to read modifies the noun book. What kind of book does Lucy take? One to
read.)

Infinitive as adverb: In “The school requires perfect attendance to graduate,”

(to graduate is an adverb modifying the verb requires.)

Don’t confuse an infinitive with a prepositional phrase. Infinitives are always the word
“to” plus a verb, as in to love, to sing, to shout, to wear, and so on. On the other hand,
prepositional phrases are the word “to” plus a noun or pronoun and any modifiers, as
in to him, to our house, to the beach, and to my office.