by Revel Arroway

Created on: December 24, 2009   Last Updated: July 31, 2011

The use of verbals in the study of the English language can seem elusive to students, mainly because of the simplicity of the actual verb in English. A verb is usually defined as an action or a state of being. When correctly positioned in a sentence, these words represent the action the subject of the sentence performs, or what state the subject is in.

A verbal, on the other hand, will not occupy the same position as a verb in the English sentence. When used as an adjective or a noun, it will naturally be placed in the position of such according to basic word-order norms of grammar.

•Verb forms

Verbs in English have limited forms. The forms that a verb can take as a verb are:

›Root or Base form: the actual word used when looking for a definition in a dictionary: “study”.

›Infinitive: the base form preceded by the particle “to”: “to read”.

›Simple past: either the base form with the "–ed" suffix added in the case of regular verbs, or the spelling change in the case of irregular verbs: “watched”; “taught”.

›Present participle: the base form with the suffix "–ing" added: “singing”.

›Past participle: the base form with the "–ed" suffix added in the case of regular verbs, or the spelling change in the case of irregular verbs: “walked”; “broken”.

›Third person singular in the simple present: usually the base form with an "–s" added at the end, with some verbs having irregular spellings, though all ending in "–s": “works”; “goes”.

•Verb forms used as verbals

While these forms are most often used to represent actions or states of being in the English sentence, some of these forms can also be used as adjectives or nouns.

›Adjectives

The adjective form of the verb is most commonly the past participle of the verb. These forms are found in the position of the adjective in a sentence:

"Mary is happy." (“happy” is an adjective); "Mary is tired." (past participle of “tire” used as an adjective)

The present participle can also serve as an adjective:

"That was a scary story." (“scary” is the adjective); "That was a boring story." (present participle of “bore” used as an adjective.

›Nouns

A present participle (base form + -ing) can be placed in the noun slot of a sentence to represent “the action of” the

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