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Gardening is the object of the prepositional phrase “bad at gardening.”.We were delighted at Bianca being awarded the prize.However, sometimes the “doer” must be overtly specified, typically in a position immediately before the non-finite verb: Tomás likes eating apricots (Tomás himself eats apricots).We enjoyed singing yesterday (we ourselves sang).Often the “doer” of the gerund is clearly signaled: Having read the book once before makes me more prepared.Being loved can make someone feel safe.They can be created using active or helping verbs: Gerunds all end in -ing: skiing, reading, dancing, singing, etc. Gerunds act like nouns and can serve as subjects or objects of sentences. There are three types of non-finite verbs: gerunds, participles, and infinitives.
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While the sentence around them may be past, present, or future tense, the non-finite verbs themselves are neutral.
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In practical terms, this means that they don’t serve as the action of a sentence. These words look similar to verbs we’ve already been talking about, but they act quite different from those other verbs.īy definition, a non-finite verb cannot serve as the main verb in an independent clause. Just when we thought we had verbs figured out, we’re brought face-to-face with a new animal: non-finite verbs.
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