English Grammar Drills

164 Verb Phrases
If the present participle is being used as the main verb in a progressive construction, we can
usually paraphrase the sentence by changing the progressive construction to a simple present
tense or past tense, for example:
His story was amusing the guests. ⇒ His story amused the guests.
When we try to turn a predicate adjective into a main verb, the result will always produce an
ungrammatical sentence. For example:
His story was amusing. ⇒ X His story amused. (who?)
Amused is a transitive verb that must have an object.
Here is another pair of examples:
(1) The report was discouraging.
(2) The report was discouraging everyone.
In (1), we can tell that discouraging is a predicate adjective because we can modify it with very:
The report was very discouraging.
When we try the very test with (2), the result is ungrammatical:
X The report was very discouraging everyone.
In (2), we can tell that discouraging is part of a progressive verb construction because we can
paraphrase the verb construction with a past tense:
The report was discouraging everyone. ⇒ The report discouraged everyone.
Exercise 10.7
Apply the very and paraphrase tests to each sentence in the following pairs of sentences.
The repeated failures were upsetting.
The repeated failures were upsetting everyone.
Very test: The repeated failures were very upsetting.
Paraphrase: X The repeated failures upset. (who?)
Very test: X The repeated failures were very upsetting everyone.
Paraphrase: The repeated failures upset everyone.