involve

Question

Dear membersIf parents (are involved / involved), children may fight even harder.There was a serious incident (involving / involved) a group of youths.Pls explain me why I can not use " involved" on the two sentence instead of underlined ones.ThanksSSY

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

SSY JungIf parents (are involved / involved), children may fight even harder.

You need the passive. (Something) involves the parents (active); therefore, the parents are involved (in something) (passive).

SSY JungThere was a serious incident (involving / involved) a group of youths.

There is no repetition of the first subject ('serious incident' or its pronoun form 'it') for the verb 'involve'. And there is no subject such as 'that' or 'which' in the second part of the sentence that can connect it to the first part. If you had one of those, you could write one of these finite constructions:

There was a serious incident. The incident involved a group of youths.
Or
There was a serious incident. It involved a group of youths.
Or
There was a serious incident that involved a group of youths.
Or
There was a serious incident which involved a group of youths.

But you don't have any of those things in the sentence, so you need a non-finite construction using either an active participle (involving) or a passive participle (involved), but it has to match the meaning in the sentences above with a finite construction.

A) (Something) involved a group of youths. - active
B) A group of youths was involved (in something). - passive

The finite construction is active, so you need the active participle involving for the corresponding non-finite construction.

CJ

involve

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