What is the verb in the following sentence: "The waves were waxing and waning?" ?

Question

I am trying to determine if "waxing and waning" are part of the verb (compound verb), or are predicate nominatives?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi S.D.  

This is my favorite sort of question--and a good one--tricky for precisely the reason you are asking.

The verb in the sentence is /were waxing/  /were waning/.  As you supposed, it is a compound verb, and your auxiliary verb in this case is /were/.  So what you have is a compound verb in the past progressive tense.  

If I knew how to insert a diagram, that gives a beautiful representation of the function of each of the words in the sentence.  But try as I might, I can't figure out how to do that.



                              / waxing

        waves   | were |    

          \the               \  waning

"Waves" is the subject; "the"is an article modifying waves.  "Were" is your auxiliary verb for "waxing" and "waning," which are the progressive forms of those two verbs; "and" is the conjunction which joins the two progressive forms....but I can't seem to find any info on how to do graphics for this site....

Hope this helps...

Answer 2

No, were is the verb.  Waxing and waning are adjectives which describe the waves.  You may be confusing gerunds, adjectives and verbs.

Answer 3

i think it's a compound verb, but what do ik.