We sang songs around the campfire and toasted marshmallows.
(There are no non-finite verbs in this example.)
this is copy pasted sentence from grammar monster non-finite verbs chapter.wanted to know why in this sentence we have not considered 'toasted' as a nonfinite as it seems to be past participle
We sang songs around the campfire and toasted marshmallows.
(There are no non-finite verbs in this example.)
this is copy pasted sentence from grammar monster non-finite verbs chapter.wanted to know why in this sentence we have not considered 'toasted' as a nonfinite as it seems to be past participle
Hi Gurpreet
We sang songs around the campfire and toasted marshmallows.
Grammar-monster is correct: "toasted" is not a non-finite verb but the past tense form of the verb "toast". Past tense forms are always finite.
This kind of sentence is called a coordinated construction in which there are two coordinated finite verb phrases (underlined), each of which has "we" as subject:
We sang songs around the campfire. We toasted marshmallows.
The verbs, "sang" and "toasted" are both past tense forms, therefore finite, not participles.
sir, i agree with what you say,
but for past participles we associate 'ed' with verbs . so in a given sentence, how we are sure that it is used as a past participle or a verbs the past tense???
i faced similar problems while identifying nonfinites while giving test given on same page of nonfintes chapter. in that test some verbs with 'ed' ending are classified as nonfinites and some with 'ed'ending are classified as finites.
"...how CAN we BE sure that it is BEING used as a Past Participle AND NOT a VERB IN THE PAST TENSE?
Paul has pointed out that the sentence is comprised of two clauses, both in the Past Tense:
We sang songs around the campfire.
We toasted marshmallows.
Let's look at the sentence... IF ...'toasted' WERE the Past Participle:
We sang songs around the campfire AFTER WE HAD toasted marshmallows.
This is clearly Past Perfect Tense.
Since the Past Perfect is used to indicate that an action occurred before the first action mentioned, the preposition 'after' serves that purpose (keeping the time-line clear/understood), so we would STILL USE the Past Tense, since both actions are in the past, and from the use of 'after', the time-line is clear to the reader WITHOUT using the Past Perfect Tense.:
We sang songs around the campfire AFTER WE toasted marshmallows.