Usage of increasing


1) The class is boring. (Adjective)


2) He is running. (Continuous verb)


3) The gap is increasing. (Continuous verb? or adjective?)



I know that the speech part of boring and running in each sentence but I am not sure what the speech part of increasing is in the sentence. Could you help me out and explain the reason, if you do not mind?


I think that increasing there is a continuous verb, but we also can use it as an adjective here in a increasing gap, an increasing number, etc and we can make it an adverb, adding -ly. So I thought of it as an adjective as well. What do you experts think? 


Thank you so much as always.

edited Nov 29 '12 at 06:07 Hans Contributor

1 answer


In "The gap is increasing," "increasing" is a verb, a participle that is part of the present progressive form "is increasing."


You can use a participle (verb ending in -ing) in a variety of ways. In addition to forming the progressive, it can also be used, as you point out, as an adjective (increasing gap, running conversation, etc.).


Boring is an interesting case, since it does not have to appear before a noun to be used as an adjective, but can be a predicate adjective (as in your sentence above).  It could also be changed to a verb by saying "The class is boring me."


(I should amend this by saying that not every verb that ends in -ing is a participle.  Some are gerunds.  And only the present participle ends in -ing.)

link comment edited Nov 29 '12 at 17:59 David Contributor

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