Present Participle can fulfill the following syntactic functions:
| Functions
| Indicators
| Examples
|
| Predicate
| After link verbs be, seem,
look, become, sound, etc.
| Their offer sounds tempting.
|
| Attribute
|
| He was taken in by her charming smile.
|
| Part of a complex object
| a After the verbs denoting sense perception: hear, watch, see, notice, feel, etc.
b After the verb “have”
| We saw him driving a car.
I can’t have you doing it.
|
| Parenthesis
|
| Frankly speaking, this is illegal.
|
| Adverbial modifiers of:
| Time
| After the conjunctions while and when.
| While turning up, his dombyra, the soloist broke it.
|
| Attendant circumstances
|
| She was standing near the river admiring the beautiful view.
|
| Reason, cause
|
| Being a stranger, he was the most eligible for suspicion.
|
| Comparison
| After the conjunctions as if, as though
| He looked at her as if waiting for an answer.
|
| Manner
|
| She came in carrying a big suitcase.
|
Notes!
1.Present Participle Perfect is not used as an attribute. To express priority an attribute clause is used: The man who has broken his leg is Sam.
2.Present Participle Indefinite of the verb “to be” is not used an adverbial modifier of time.
Participle I and the gerund are alike in their verbal characteristics, both morphological (the categories of voice and perfect) and syntactical. The difference between them lies in their non-verbal characteristics.
