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Infinitive form and -ing -ed


4.3 The Infinitive Form

The INFINITIVE form of a verb is the form which follows to:  

 

 

to ask 
to believe 
to cry 
to go

to protect 
to sing 
to talk 
to wish

 

  

This form is indistinguishable from the base form. Indeed, many people cite this form when they identify a verb, as in "This is the verb to be", although to is not part of the verb.  

Infinitives with to are referred to specifically as TO-INFINITIVES, in order to distinguish them from BARE INFINITIVES, in which to is absent:

 

 

To-infinitive

Bare infinitive

Help me to open the gate

Help me open the gate

 

  
4.4 More Verb Forms: -ing and -ed

So far we have looked at three verb forms: the present form, the past form, and the infinitive/base form. Verbs have two further forms which we will look at now.  

[1] The old lady is writing a play 
[2] The film was produced in Hollywood 

The verb form writing in [1] is known as the -ing form, or the -ING PARTICIPLE form. In [2], the verb form produced is called the -ed form, or -ED PARTICIPLE form.  

Many so-called -ed participle forms do not end in -ed at all:  

The film was written by John Brown 
The film was bought by a British company 
The film was made in Hollywood 

All of these forms are called -ed participle forms, despite their various endings. The term "-ed participle form" is simply a cover term for all of these forms.  

The -ed participle form should not be confused with the -ed inflection which is used to indicate the past tense of many verbs.  

We have now looked at all five verb forms. By way of summary, let us bring them together and see how they look for different verbs. For convenience, we will illustrate only the third person singular forms (the forms which agree with he/she/it) of each verb. Notice that some verbs have irregular past forms and -ed forms.  

 

 

Base/Infinitive Form

Present Tense Form

Past Tense Form

-ing Form

-ed Form

cook

he cooks

he cooked

he is cooking

he has cooked

walk

he walks

he walked

he is walking

he has walked

take

he takes

he took

he is taking

he has taken

bring

he brings

he brought

he is bringing

he has brought

be

he is

he was

he is being

he has been

 

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