First You Write a Sentence.: The Elements of Reading, Writing … and Life.

by Joe Moran

A complete sentence needs at least one finite verb. A finite verb must agree with a subject and have a tense. My brain hurts. Like other finite things, a finite verb has limits. The limits are time (my brain is hurting now, but hopefully not for ever) and the subject to which it is linked (my brain hurts, no one else’s). Non-finite verbs – infinitives (the basic form of a verb, usually beginning to), participles (verbal adjectives) and gerunds (verbal nouns) – do not need a tense or need to agree with a subject. Without a subject and tense, they have lost some of the heat of finite verbs. They can also create confusion about who is doing what to whom and when – hence that common problem, the dangling participle, which comes at the start of a sentence but forgets to refer to the subject. Strolling along London Bridge, the Shard loomed above us. Another problem is that both present participles and gerunds end in -ing. If you use lots of -ing words, it may be unclear if they are participles or gerunds or some other word ending in -ing. The result is samey-sounding -ings and temporal confusion.