3.5 Verbals

Verbals are tricky not because they're difficult, but because they may be confused with verb phrases. The difference is that verbals are simply verb forms functioning as nouns, adjectives or adverbs, not as the verb of the sentence.

There are three different kinds of verbals: infinitives, gerunds (or -ing forms), and participles ( -ing and -en forms). 

Verbals are never inflicted for person or tense. Each of these verbals are part of a phrase, which includes modifiers, complements, and objects.


Infinitives: An infinitive consists of to + simple form of the verb + modifier(s). In the next sentence, likes is the main verb, the verbal to go is functioning as a noun.

Everybody likes to go to the movies when they're sad

Gerunds: verb + -ing + modifier(s). It functions as a noun and can be used as a subject, object, and object preposition. The following example is that of an object of the preposition.

Are there people that eat dinner and smile at each other instead of watching TV?

preposition + verb + -ing + modifier

Participles: Verbals that function as adjectives, and modify nouns and pronouns. 
They end in -ing or -en.

Verb + -ing + noun:                 This is a binding contract.

Source: http://grammar.about.com/od/basicsentencegrammar/a/verbalswhat.htm