Present participle as verb or adjective

Question

(1) I saw him crying just now.
(2) With more people volunteering to join us, we are going to help more people in the community.
So, both of these sentences make use of present participle (crying in number 1 and volunteering in number 2). Am I correct if I suggest that the present participle in number 1 is a verb and that in number 2 is an adjective?
Thank you in advance.

Brandon · Answer

There are largely five sentence structures.

S+V : I run.
S+V+C : I am a boy. He is tall.
S+V+O : I study English
S+V+IO+DO : I gave him a book.
S+V+O+OC : I saw him cry (or I saw him crying)- the person who cries is "him"

saw him crying gives more information and emphasize : When you saw him, he was crying.
*IO=Indirect Objective
(1) I saw him crying just now. (2) With more people volunteering to join us, we are going to help more people in the community.
with participial phrase
with+person+present participle : with the students (who are) coming to my class
with+thing+past participle : with my eyes (which are) closed
The purpose of participial phrase is to make the sentence short, so (who are) and (which are) almost always omitted.

Present participle as verb or adjective

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