function of a word?

Question

What's the function of "carrying" in: "The boy carrying 3 boxes is cute"? can its mood, aspect and tense be identified?

Answer 1

The function of "carrying" in the sentence given is an adjective. It is a present participle being used to modify "boy."

The tense is present because it is an action that is taking place currently while the speaker is speaking.

The aspect is progressive because the action is yet unfinished; it is an ongoing action.

In regard to mood, it is generally considered that participles do not have mood.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Regarding mood, aspect, and tense:

1. Mood: The participle "carrying" does not have a mood in this context because it is not a finite verb form; it is used adjectivally to describe the noun.
2. Aspect: The aspect of "carrying" is progressive (or continuous) because it indicates an ongoing action. However, since it is a participle, it does not fully convey aspect on its own but implies the continuous nature of the action.(instead the passive perfect participle of carried)
3. Tense: Participles themselves do not have tense.(in English in other languages it doesn't work like that) The present participle "carrying" suggests an action happening contemporaneously with the main verb of the sentence, which is "is" (present tense). Therefore, it implies an action happening at the same time as the present moment described by the main verb.

In summary, "carrying" is a present participle used to describe an ongoing action related to the noun "boy," without specific mood or tense of its own, but it suggests a progressive aspect.

Answer 3

In this sentence, the word "carrying" performs the function of an attributive verb, or a verb that modifies a noun. Attributives can also be adjectives (as in: short boy) or nouns (as in: soup bowl). It's part of the verb phrase "carrying 3 boxes," and when combined with the noun phrase "the boy" it creates the larger noun phrase of "the boy carrying 3 boxes."

This particular instance is a present participle, which is a kind of non-finite verb--a verb that doesn't conjugate for person or number, like gerunds and infinitives.

The aspect of present participles may be interpreted as either imperfect (unfinished) or a subtype of the imperfect called the progressive (unfinished, making progress towards completion). Non-finite verbs in English do not have mood.