A participle as infinite verb

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Why do people consider a [participle] to be an infinite verb? I don’t personally agree with that, I don’t know about you?
If it is true that a particple is an infinite verb, then please give me an explanation along side with examples

Many thanks

2

Hello, Ebe!

Your question is interesting. A participle does not carry either of the tenses. So it is treated as an infinite (non finite) verb. Strangely and paradoxically, a participle is often called either present or past participle. It’s a misnomer as I have said on many an occasion earlier.

Now to give you examples I may cite the following:

Seeing the tiger the hunter took to his heels.
Given more time, she will answer all the questions.

He is eating an apple. (Here the tense carrier is ‘is’)
He has eaten an apple. (Here the tense is carried by ‘has’)

3

Thank you, the explanation is excellent and intelligible’

But, one funny aspect is that, the helping verb plus the participle make a finite verb in your last example, in that sentence the participle is singled out to be infinite verb, just because it can’t express any tense.

I like your term ‘misnomer’ used for a participle having a subject, yet called infinite verb, infact that so-called infinite verb in this case amuses me.

Thanks once more!

4

Hi ANGLOPHILE, if you were given a chance to decide and give a name to this kind of partiiciple would you have given it an infinite verb?

5

The names suggested by modern grammarians are Active Progressive Participle (APP) and Passive Perfective Participle (PPP) for the so-called [color=red]Present Participle and [color=red]Past Participle respectively.

www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic84393.html
www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic124222.html

6

Thanks Anglophile, the link contains a lot!