Let's Correct the Textbooks

This is the third of a series of guest editorials by retired English teacher Donald Hibbard.. English grammar terminology comes largely from Latin, and over the centuries there have been problems trying to fit English to a Latin mold. He may help us re-think some of the things we have learned--even some of the things in Grammar Slammer!

The first installment included the proposition that "A participle, like an infinitive, is used as an adjective, a noun, or an adverb." This idea is in distinct contrast to what textbooks usually say--that "A verbal acting as a noun is a gerund, a verbal acting as a noun is a preposition." In this installment, Mr. Hibbard shows us what he means.

Re-Thinking Verbals

Tenses--Used only as simple predicates

Participles--Used only as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs

Infinitives--Used only as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs

A basic grammar exercise we all had to do as children or students learning English was to identify the subject and verb of a sentence. Look at the following sentence:

Seeing is believing.

Each of the three words is a verb. Seeing is a participle used as a noun and is the subject of the sentence. Is is a tense and is the simple predicate. Believing is another participle used as a noun and is the subject complement (or predicate nominative).

"Oh, no!" you may be saying. "Seeing and believing are gerunds." Yes, we have used that useless term for ages merely because people tried to make English (the round peg) fit into the square hole of Latin grammar. They declared that a participle was a verbal adjective. Period. Case closed. So they had to call it something else when it was used as a noun: gerund.

Now consider the infinitive:

1. I like to eat.
To eat is the direct object of like, a noun function.

2. I stopped to eat.
To eat modifies stopped, an adverb function.

3. It is time to eat.
To eat modifies time, an adjective function.

In each case, we call to eat an infinitive. Why should we change the name of a participle when we use it as a noun?

Now what about that idea that a participle cannot be adverbial? Nonsense. Let's take a look.

1. The man walked down the street with a limp.
We all agree that with a limp is an adverbial prepositional phrase modifying walked.

2. The man walked down the street limping.
Will anyone with developed grammatical sensitivity claim that limping modifies man? No.

In addition, most sentences beginning with a participial phrase, that phrase is adverbial. In most cases, we could replace the phrase with an adverbial clause rather than an adjective clause.

Running harder than ever, Don broke the record.

If we were to replace the phrase running harder than ever with a clause, we are more likely to say, "Because he ran harder than ever, Don broke the record" as we are to say, "Don, who ran harder than ever, broke the record." While both communicate the same intent, the construction with the adverb clause is more common.