Verbals
Verbals are words or phrases that seem to carry the idea of action or being but do not function as a true verb. They are called non-finite (unfinished or incomplete) verbs, as we discussed before. There are three kinds of verbals or verbal phrases in English: participle, infinitive, and gerund.
Participle
participle is a verb form acting as an adjective. "the running dog chased the fluttering moss" is an example. A present participle like running and fluttering describes a present condition; and a past participle describes something that has happened or used as the passive voice: "The completely rotted tooth finally fell out of his mouth." The distinction can be important to the meaning of a sentence: there is a huge difference between a confusing student and a confused student. Are you boring or bored? Hope you are just bored, but you are not boring[1].
Infinitive
Infinitive form of a verb is just the root (i.e., the base form) of a verb plus the word "to", which is called the infinitive article: To sleep, perchance to dream.
Split Infinitive: an infinitive is said to be "split" when an adverb or a phrase sneaks between the infinitive article "to" and the root of the infinitive: "to boldly go". There is an argument against use of "split infinitive". This argument is based on shaky historical grounds stating that the infinitive is a single unit and therefore should not be divided. In more recent development regarding infinitive usage, many believe that there is nothing wrong with such split infinitives: "He thinks he'll be able to more than double his salary this year.". But, do not use the word "not" to split any infinitive. We say: "He decided not to talk to her," instead of "He decided to not talk to her."
So, the general rule is that you can use any adverb except "not" either to split or not to split an infinitive. Opinions regarding whether the split infinitive is acceptable or not remains divided. Today's dictionaries allow us to split the infinitive, but it should never be done at the expense of traditional grace. Try to be wise and know your English instructor's feelings on this matter. Infinitives can also be used as nouns, predicate complements, objects, and adverbs (see the section on infinitive).
Gerund
Gerund is another verbal form ending in "-ing". It acts as a noun: Running in the park after dark can be dangerous. Since gerunds or gerund phrases are nouns, they can be used in any way that a noun can be used:
A gerund can also have a perfect tense, indicating the time of the gerund is earlier than the verb of the main sentence, just as the infinitive can have its perfect tense:
Actual v. Potential Meanings
Verbs of emotions:
I hated practicing my violin while other kids were playing outside (practicing in general).
Verbs of Completion/Incompletion:
Verbs of remembering (such as remember, forget, regret)
Understandably, it won't be easy for students to get a solid hold on such delicate differences between gerund and infinitive. My personal advice will be: remember that the gerund has as aspect of being general while the infinitive carries a characteristic of being specific. Take the following sentence as an example:
[2] Others believe that the difference between gerunds and infinitives is that the gerund is more used to describe a general concept of things that have happened or things in progress, whereas the infinitive is more used to described a specific thing or idea that has not been happened or has happened with a specific time or other specific aspects.