ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 focuses on verbals (gerunds, gerund phrases, participles, participle phrase, infinitive, infinitive phrase). Tests for identifying gerunds include the pronoun substitution test, possessive subject test, the verb conjugation test, and the deletion test. Participles function as adjectives that have more flexibility in terms of where they are located in a sentence. They can have the present participle form or the past participle form. Because gerunds also have a present participle form, the “deletion test” and “pronoun substitution test” are provided for distinguishing between gerunds and participles. Dangling participles are discussed and practiced along with the punctuation patterns. Infinitives functioning as nouns, adjectives, and adverbs are examined and practiced. Writing Matters provides a discussion of parallel structures along with practice editing. Language Matters discusses zombie grammar rules, those that are alive but should be dead.
