Katherine99
Member
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2012
- Member Type
- Interested in Language
- Native Language
- Spanish
- Home Country
- Mexico
- Current Location
- United States
I know that “by growing into a beautiful swan” is a prepositional phrase modifying “surprises”. At first I thought that “growing into a beautiful swan” was a gerund, but an English teacher from another site said that “growing” was a verb because you couldn’t substitute another noun in its place and because the duckling had to surprise everyone by DOING something. Is she correct? I thought that a verb ending in –ing always had to be combined with the “to be” verb in order to function as a verb.