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I have a question. With regard to present participles such as sleeping, singing or fishing. When used in the following sentences are they functioning as nouns or verbs.

I am swimming

In my mind, swimming is and action, so I think that it's a verb. When I look online, it lists participles as nouns.

I'm confused!

Jack
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    You need to distinguish Form from Function. Participle is the name for the -ing form of the verb; it's the Present Active Participle, to be precise. That has nothing to do with how it's used. There are some uses of the present active participle that are main verbs, like the Progressive construction (though only active verbs can do this); there are some other uses that are Gerunds (which are verbs), and still others that are called "participial", which means they can act like adjectives or adverbs. – John Lawler Feb 15 '15 at 18:38
  • What practical application would "knowing" whether swimming here "is" a noun or a verb -- or for that matter, an adjective or adverb -- serve? Try testing it by following it with a noun like ducks or races or suits, with a verb like to win or laughing, with an adjective like pretty or nude or nicer or friendlier, or with an adverb like well, then, soon, deep, later, tomorrow, Tuesday, or easily. Did knowing what swimming "is" tell you which of those would be "right" or "wrong"? – tchrist Feb 15 '15 at 18:53
  • ... No, but classification can help understanding. Terms such as 'present participle' and 'participial adjective'can be of use when explaining the ambiguity in say 'These pupils are trying'. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 15 '15 at 18:56
  • @Edwin Wouldn't it be good enough in your example to call trying either a verb or an adjective, depending on intended meaning? Will trying magistrates trying trying cases try trying judges' patience in the higher courts, or might the try work out and so save on legal costs and delays? :) – tchrist Feb 15 '15 at 19:30
  • @tchrist We'll never agree on the lumping / splitting issue. Yes, splitting is messy. With ing-forms, there's the quagmire in the midst of the verb / noun / adjective extremes (Quirk examines the verb - noun cline in fair detail). And then you throw in the preposition factor (rightly), which makes the quagmire pyramidal. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 15 '15 at 19:59

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In "I am swimming", "swimming" is a verb. If it were an adjective, you could modify it with "very", but *"I am very swimming" is no good. In "I am confused", "confused" could be an adjective or a verb -- it may be ambiguous; I'm not sure. But at least, it can be an adjective, since we have "I am very confused". (Note that "killed" is always a participle and never an adjective, so *"He was very killed" is bad.)

We can't use predicate position as a test with coordination, but elsewhere we can devise a test based on the fact that only like categories can be conjoined. Both -ing verbs and adjectives can modify nouns, as in "the confused athlete"/"the swimming athlete", but *"the confused and swimming athlete" is pretty strange, presumably because we've coordinated different categories: adjective and verb.

(John's answer, given above as a comment, is wrong. Category is intrinsic to constituents -- function is not separable.)

Greg Lee
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  • swimming is most certainly not a verb in "I am swimming". The verb is am, swimming is the participle. A participle is closer to being an adverb than being a verb - after at, it modifies the (auxillary) verb am. – fgp Feb 15 '15 at 20:16
  • No, @fgp, am is an auxiliary, not a verb. You can tell that by the fact that am is inverted to form a yes-no question: Am I swimming?. Verbs don't work that way: *Swims he in the pool? – Greg Lee Feb 15 '15 at 20:30
  • @fgp, see http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/English/swim.html. All of the progressive forms of the verb swim, use swimming, including the First person present indicative progressive: *I am swimming*. John Lawler's comment is spot on regardless of Greg Lee's contrary claim: form and function are discrete designations of a participle. – ScotM Feb 15 '15 at 20:34
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    @fgp: Greg is correct. The main verb is swimming. The auxiliary verb is am. The first auxiliary verb in an English sentence is inflected for tense (and in the case of be with person and number as well), and all the rest of the verbs in the verb phrase are non-finite forms (infinitive, past participle, or present participle). One can have up to 4 auxiliary verbs in one verb chain: She may have been being interrogated the entire time. May, have, been, and being are all auxiliaries; interrogated is the (past participle form) main verb. http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler/VPguide.pdf – John Lawler Feb 15 '15 at 20:36
  • @GregLee But by that can-I-invert-to-form-a-question logic, am also wouldn't be the verb in "I am here" - asking "Am I here?" is perfectly valid. – fgp Feb 15 '15 at 22:25
  • @fgp, yes, you're right. – Greg Lee Feb 15 '15 at 22:26
  • @JohnLawler OK, I guess you could define things that may. Still makes very little sense to me though - calling the one verbal form that is inflected the main verb seems much more sensible to me, and it's what all other languages that I know of do... – fgp Feb 15 '15 at 22:30
  • @fgp, you are not alone. Here (from John's website) is a paper by Ross which argues that inflected auxiliaries are main verbs: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/haj/AuxasMV.pdf – Greg Lee Feb 15 '15 at 22:40
  • Yes, one can do that. But that makes the analysis of the sentences very abstract, with almost everything being an abstract predicate (this is the level of abstraction where performative verbs are sposta appear). Generally speaking, though, "main verb" is not a term with a precise meaning -- it means the one you're concentrating on, either because it's inflected or because it's the only one that has its own meaning and isn't part of the grammar. – John Lawler Feb 15 '15 at 22:49