Craig's perceptive discussion of the "verbness" of various words such as 
"taking" from my example was impressive and informative.

But I think the difficulty I'm having is the bifurcated nature of the word 
verb--applying to a word class (née part of speech) and to a function in a 
sentence.

So when Craig says that "taking" in "The couple taking a walk in the park" is 
a verb, I take it that he means it belongs to the word class "verb."   But 
its function in the sentence is not "verb," is it?

If a student is trying to edit his or her writing and is trying to decide 
whether "The couple taking a walk in the park" is or is not a sentence, doesn't 
that student need to recognize that it does not have a verb (in Martha's 
terminology, a "main verb")?


Peter Adams

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