Explain verbals, form active and passive voice, use five verb moods and correct inappropriate shifts

Learning goal: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. Explain the function of verbals, gerunds, participles and infinitives, in general and in particular sentences. Form and use verbs in the active and passive voice. Form and use verbs in the indicative, imperative, interrogative, conditional and subjunctive moods. Recognize and correct inappropriate shifts in verb voice and mood. Every example sentence below is labeled with what it shows.

Verbals: verb forms doing another word's job. A verbal is a form of a verb that is not the main verb of its clause. Instead it works as a noun, an adjective or an adverb. There are three kinds, and the way to tell them apart is by function, not by spelling.

A gerund is the -ing form used as a noun. It can be a subject: "Rehearsing takes patience." (gerund as subject). A direct object: "The cast dreaded rehearsing." (gerund as object of dreaded). The object of a preposition: "They improved by rehearsing." (gerund as object of by). A gerund can carry its own object and modifiers, forming a gerund phrase that still acts as one noun: "Rehearsing the final scene took an hour." (gerund phrase as subject; scene is the gerund's object). A test: if the whole phrase can be replaced by it and the sentence still works, it is a noun, so the -ing word is a gerund. "It took an hour."

A participle is a verb form used as an adjective. The present participle ends in -ing: "The rehearsing cast ignored the bell." (participle modifying cast). The past participle usually ends in -ed or -en, or is irregular: "the rehearsed scene," "a broken prop," "the chosen play" (past participles modifying scene, prop, play). A participial phrase modifies a noun and is set off by a comma when it opens the sentence: "Exhausted by the third run-through, the cast sat on the stage floor." (participial phrase modifying cast). The phrase must modify the noun that follows it. "Exhausted by the third run-through, the stage floor looked inviting" says the floor was exhausted; it is a dangling participle, corrected by naming the actor: "Exhausted by the third run-through, the cast found the stage floor inviting."

An infinitive in its usual form is to plus the base form (the to-infinitive; after a few verbs such as let, make and help the to is dropped, "Let her leave," and this lesson works with the to form), and it can act as a noun, an adjective or an adverb. Noun: "To finish on time is the goal." (infinitive as subject); "The director wants to finish." (infinitive as object). Adjective: "There is one scene to finish." (infinitive modifying scene). Adverb: "The cast stayed late to finish the scene." (infinitive phrase telling why they stayed). A condition: to followed by a noun, as in "to the theater," is a preposition, not an infinitive marker.

The one form, three jobs problem. The same -ing word can be a gerund, a participle, or part of the verb itself. "Running is exercise." (gerund, subject). "The running child laughed." (participle modifying child). "The child is running." (is running is the main verb in the progressive; no verbal here, because the -ing form follows a form of be and together they are the predicate). Students who label every -ing word a gerund are guessing from spelling. Ask what the word does in this sentence.

Voice. In the active voice the subject performs the action: "The crew painted the set." (active). In the passive voice the subject receives the action, and the verb is a form of be plus the past participle; the actor may be added with by or omitted: "The set was painted by the crew." (passive, agent named); "The set was painted." (passive, agent omitted). The form of be carries the tense: is painted, was painted, has been painted, will be painted. As a rule, only a verb that takes an object can be made passive; "The audience laughed" has no passive because nothing receives the laughing. (English also allows a passive with some verb-plus-preposition pairs, where the object of the preposition becomes the subject: "The props were looked after." Even laugh can do this once a preposition gives it an object: "The joke was laughed at.") The passive is a choice, not an error. It is the better choice when the actor is unknown, "The window was broken overnight," when the actor is unimportant, "The bridge was closed for two weeks," or when the receiver of the action is the topic. It is the worse choice when the actor matters and the agent is dropped: "Mistakes were made" tells the reader nothing about who made them, whereas "Mistakes were made by the treasurer" still names the actor, only less prominently.

Mood. Mood is the form of the verb that signals how the speaker presents the action: as a fact, a command, a question, a possibility, or a wish or hypothesis. Ohio's standard names five moods, and this lesson uses those five labels. Many reference grammars list only three, indicative, imperative and subjunctive, and treat questions as a use of the indicative and conditionals as a use of modal verbs; knowing both systems will help you read different references. The labels describe function, and the function is what you must control.

Indicative states a fact or an opinion: "The set is finished." (indicative). Imperative gives a command or request; the subject you is understood and the base form is used: "Finish the set by Friday." (imperative); "Do not move the ladder." (imperative, negative). Interrogative asks a question, usually by placing an auxiliary before the subject: "Is the set finished?" "Did the crew finish the set?" (interrogative). Conditional presents what would, could or might happen if a condition were met, using a modal in the main clause: "If the paint dried faster, the crew would finish tonight." (conditional); "The crew could finish tonight." (conditional with the condition implied). Subjunctive presents a wish, a demand, a suggestion, or a state contrary to fact. Modern English keeps two forms of it. After if or wish, for something contrary to fact, were is used for every subject: "If I were the director, I would cut the scene." (subjunctive were, contrary to fact); "She wishes she were taller." (subjunctive). After verbs of demand, suggestion or necessity followed by that, the base form is used: "The director insisted that the crew be on time." (subjunctive be); "It is essential that every prop stay in place." (subjunctive stay, not stays). A condition on were: with I, he, she or it, use were only when the situation is contrary to fact or purely hypothetical. "If I was late yesterday, I apologize" describes something that may really have happened, so the indicative was is correct. With plural subjects and you, were is also the ordinary past tense, so "If they were late yesterday, they missed the announcement" is indicative, not subjunctive; the test is always meaning, not the word.

Shifts in voice and mood. A shift is a change of voice or mood within a sentence or a passage. It is inappropriate when nothing motivates it, when it confuses who is acting, or when it breaks a parallel series. Voice shift: "The crew painted the set, and then the props were arranged by them." (active to passive, unmotivated). Corrected: "The crew painted the set and then arranged the props." (active throughout). Mood shift: "Check the fire exits, and then you should test the lights." (imperative to indicative: should here states an obligation, not a result that depends on a condition, so it is not the conditional mood). Corrected: "Check the fire exits, and then test the lights." (imperative throughout). Mood shift inside a conditional: "If the fog machine were repaired, the scene works." (subjunctive condition, indicative result). Corrected: "If the fog machine were repaired, the scene would work." (subjunctive condition, conditional result). Not every change is a fault. "Please sit down. The performance begins in two minutes." moves from imperative to indicative because the two sentences do different jobs, a request and then a fact, and the reader follows without effort. The test is whether the change serves the meaning or merely happened.

A worked model in prose. Take the draft sentence "Having checked the exits, the lights were tested by the crew, and you should log the results." Having checked the exits is a participial phrase, so it must modify the noun that follows; the lights did not check anything, so the phrase dangles. The lights were tested by the crew is passive with the actor named, and there is no reason to hide the crew. You should log shifts to a modal indicative addressed to a reader who has not been addressed before. Revised: "Having checked the exits, the crew tested the lights and logged the results." (participial phrase modifying crew; active voice; indicative mood throughout). One sentence, three repairs, each explained by function.

Worked verbal identification: "Hoping to impress the director, Mara finished memorizing her lines before dinner." Hoping to impress the director is a participial phrase modifying Mara, an adjective job, and it is set off by a comma because it opens the sentence. Inside it, to impress is an infinitive acting as the object of hoping. Memorizing her lines is a gerund phrase acting as the direct object of finished; replace it with it and the sentence stands, "Mara finished it before dinner." Three verbals, three different jobs, and none of them is the main verb, which is finished. The same -ing phrase would change label with its job: in "Memorizing her lines took the evening" it is a gerund subject, and in "the memorizing actor" the single word is a participle.

Worked voice conversion with tense: Active: "The stage manager has posted the schedule." (present perfect, active). Passive: "The schedule has been posted by the stage manager." (present perfect, passive: has been plus past participle posted). Active: "The stage manager will post the schedule." Passive: "The schedule will be posted." The form of be changes to carry the tense; the past participle posted does not change. Decide which version to use by asking whether the actor matters to the reader: for a notice to the cast, the passive without agent is fine; for a report on who was responsible, the actor must be named, which the active does most directly; an agentless passive would drop it, while "was posted by the stage manager" keeps it, only less prominently.

Worked mood classification and repair: "If the curtain was stuck, the crew would cut the scene." The main clause is conditional (would cut), and the if-clause presents a situation being imagined, so the subjunctive were is the form that matches: "If the curtain were stuck, the crew would cut the scene." (subjunctive condition, conditional result). Compare "If the curtain was stuck last night, the report should say so." Here the condition may really have happened, so the indicative was is correct and no repair is needed. Mood follows meaning; the word if alone does not require were.

Function chart: Copy six sentences from your own writing that contain an -ing word or an infinitive. For each, label the word as gerund, participle, part of a progressive verb, or infinitive, state the job it does (subject, object, modifier of a named noun, adverb telling why), and rewrite one sentence so that the same word takes a different job. Then write one sentence in each of the five moods on a single topic, labeling each, and one active sentence with its passive counterpart, stating the tense of both.

Independent performance: Write two pieces on one event, such as a rehearsal, a match or a lab session: a set of twelve instructions for someone doing it next time, and a 150-word report of what happened. In the instructions, sustain the imperative mood and use at least one interrogative and one conditional sentence where they serve a purpose, labeling them in the margin. In the report, use at least two gerunds, two participial phrases and two infinitives, each labeled with its function; choose voice deliberately in every sentence and annotate one passive sentence with the reason the passive was better; include one correctly formed subjunctive. Exchange with a partner who hunts for dangling participles and unmotivated shifts. Success criteria: every label is correct, every passive has a stated reason, no participle dangles, and no shift survives that the writer cannot justify.