Infinitive, gerund and participle: examples

In Spanish there are three non-personal forms of the verb: infinitive, gerund and participle. They are so named because they lack the personal endings that accompany the rest of the verb forms. In addition, another of the characteristics that distinguishes these three non-personal forms of the verb is that they can perform, in addition to the verbal functions those of a noun (in the case of the infinitive), those of an adverb (the gerund only) and, finally, the functions of an adjective (the participle, in this case).

Next, in this lesson from a Teacher we will explain the infinitive, the gerund and the participle with examples simple and, thus, we will see how they are built and when they are used.

Index

1. The infinitive
2. The gerund
3. The participle

Considered as the basic and elemental form of the verb, the infinitive plays a main role within the Spanish verb system, since its ending serves to classify verbs according to the three existing conjugations in our language. Thus, depending on whether the infinitive ends in -ar ("sing"), -er ("fear") or -ir ("live"), the verb will be part of one or another conjugation.

Regarding its structure, the infinitive has two forms: the simple infinitive, which is perhaps the most common ("sing", "travel", "dream", "want", "eat", "fear", "feel", "laugh", "go out") and the compound infinitive ("having sung", "having traveled", "having dreamed", "having wanted", "having eaten", "having feared", "having felt", "having laughed", "having gone out").

With respect to its syntactic function, the infinitive can act like a noun and, therefore, carry articles and accessories:

• Running away is never a solution.
• Living intensely from day to day is a good option.
• I love writing.
• Asking for forgiveness is a gesture of humility.
• Reading books in English is a good way to build vocabulary.
• Last night I went to bed without dinner.
• I am confident that I will pass the exam tomorrow.

With certain verbs, the infinitive has undergone a substantivation process, so that from this non-personal form of the verb a noun has arisen, such as the duty - the duties or the gait - the gait.

The gerund is constructed by adding the ending "-ndo" to the verb stem: in the case of verbs of the first conjugation "-ando" (singing, dancing, jumping) and "-iendo" for the verbs of the second conjugation (drinking, knitting, running) and also for those of the third conjugation (serving, boiling, dressing).

Like the infinitive, the gerund also consists of two forms: the simple gerund ("cleaning") in front of him compound gerund, in which the auxiliary verb "have" also has the proper gerund ending ("having cleaned").

The gerund shares many of its characteristics with verbs and adverbs, parallel to the infinitive with the noun, for example. In this way, the gerund can function as a verb and, for this reason, be accompanied by verb complements:

• I'm eating at a downtown restaurant.
• Walking down the street I met my best friend.
• The other day I couldn't sleep remembering you.
• The boy came screaming into his house.
• He left crying.
• Hurry up the movie is starting.
• If your little brother keeps bothering you, I go home.

What's more, the gerund does not admit prepositions (*by running) and has an intrinsic value that indicates a certain duration in time, as in the following example: Eating I usually watch TV which means that, normally, in the time that passes while I eat, I watch television.

We finished this lesson on the infinitive, the gerund and the participle with examples talking about the participle. The formation of the participle in Spanish it is done through suffix -ado for the first conjugation (loved, awakened, finished) and by ending -ido for the verbs of the second and third conjugation (learned, eaten, drunk, lived).

In Spanish, there are some irregular verbs that have two participle forms: attentive - attended, awakened - awake, printed - printed, fried - fried, one-eyed - crooked. In these cases, generally the irregular form of the participle fulfills the function of an adjective while the regular form is reserved for the verb: In my street lives a one-eyed man - The bike's handlebar is crooked (* is one-eyed). However, there are some exceptions, such as the verb "print": I have printed the papers O well I have printed the papers, both are correct.

When it works as an adjective, the participle agrees in gender and number with the noun it accompanies: I'm worried about you - My mother and I are worried about you.

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