Starting a sentence with a verb? - Writers Forum

aliceedelweiss · 03-11-2006, 05:53 PM

I'm trying to fix all the pronouns in my story and I have one sentence that goes:

He bit at his wrist...(I don't feel like putting up the whole sentece, since I really don't need to)

I was wondering if I could start with a verb and say:

Bitting at his wrist....

Is there any rules about starting a sentence with a verb? Is it not allowed or is it? Thanks in advanced

Alice

Titania · 03-11-2006, 05:55 PM

If you started with "biting", you'd have to have a conjugated verb later in the sentence.

Like this: Biting at his wrist, he looked up...

aliceedelweiss · 03-11-2006, 05:58 PM

Titania: I know what conjugations are, but only in french. So whats the differenece between a conjugated and a finite verb(is that what they call it? like I said I only know conjugations in french)
Alice

Titania · 03-11-2006, 06:02 PM

lol, sorry if I didn't make any sense... a conjugated verb just means any verb, basically, that doesn't end in -ing (I'm being kind of rough here, I'm sure there are exceptions).

So looked, glance, sit, smiled, etc. - pretty much anything - are all conjugated verbs. But 'biting' isn't, because biting is what's called a gerund, meaning that it's an adjective, not actually a verb. If you said "biting his wrist, he..." did something, the word "biting" describes "he".

And without a conjugated verb, it's not a sentence.

aliceedelweiss · 03-11-2006, 06:07 PM

okay thanks. and by the way, what kind of class did you take to learn all of this grammar stuff? I think I should take one...
Alice

Achilles · 03-11-2006, 06:07 PM

You can almost always start a sentence with a verb. I don't know what you want to say afterwards, but here are some examples:

"Biting at his wrist, he quickly glanced at the approaching stranger." In this, "biting" is not acting as the main verb, but rather the verb of a clause. There is an understood "while" at the beginning.

You can also say, "Biting at his wrist was his worst habit." In this, "biting" is a gerund noun (a verb acting as a noun) and the subject of the sentence.

I hope that helps a bit.

Titania · 03-11-2006, 06:10 PM

Quote:

and by the way, what kind of class did you take to learn all of this grammar stuff? I think I should take one...

Um... I'm not really sure why I know all this considering I've never taken a specific grammar class, but what's really helped me is learning foreign languages (I've taken classes in ancient Greek and Spanish). You tend to pick up a lot of grammar vocab in the higher levels there.

aliceedelweiss · 03-11-2006, 06:11 PM

thanks achilles! I really need to learn more about grammar...

Dephere · 03-11-2006, 06:13 PM

It should be taught in English.

I know I learned all of that stuff in English...you probably just don't think about it like that because it's your native tongue.

Titania · 03-11-2006, 06:14 PM

Come to think of it I think we may have done gerunds a bit last year in English...

kalibantre · 03-11-2006, 06:14 PM

they really don't teach it enough, at least in the UK, we're doing the basics in uni. true we know everything when we have to do it, but ask us a question on it and theres a lot of blank faces...

aliceedelweiss · 03-11-2006, 06:19 PM

I agree with that, They really don't teach that much, just the stuff most people mess up on like double negatives and quotations. I really think they should teach English like they do foreign languages, because I will probably end up being a lot better at French grammar than at English grammar because of that. they just say "don't start a sentence with but or and"(which authors tend to do anyways) and then they don't do anything else. I guess no one but us authors really need to know if we can start sentences with verbs...

suzakugaiden · 03-12-2006, 12:37 PM

I'm pretty sure that -ing, if it's not a gerund, is conjugated. In the case of "biting at his wrist..." you're using the progressive tense.

character1_Caitlin · 03-12-2006, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kalibantre

they really don't teach it enough, at least in the UK, we're doing the basics in uni. true we know everything when we have to do it, but ask us a question on it and theres a lot of blank faces...

Here in Ontario and Canada grades 1-8 are considered Grammar school but for some reason we come out of it not completly knowing it, they continue to teach in Highschool but of course it was boring and I did not pay much attention at the time.

Ejp414 · 03-14-2006, 06:23 PM

I believe the first word of "Biting at his wrist, he . . ." would be a participal, not a gerund.