Select which category the underlined phrase belongs to:
Walking down the road, Jerry was unaware of the car speeding towards him.
A) Gerund Phrase
B) Past Participle Phrase
C) Present Participle Phrase
D) None

Hint: The verb in the given question is in the ‘-ing’ form. The verbs ending with ‘-ing’ can be used in four different ways. These are ‘continuous verb or present participle’, ‘gerund’, ‘adjective participle’ and ‘adverb participle’.

Complete answer:
In the statement given in the question, the underlined phrase ‘walking down the road’ is describing the noun ‘Jerry’. This same sentence can also be written as “Jerry, who was walking down the road, was unaware of the car speeding towards him.” The phrase ‘who was walking down the road’ is an adjective phrase for the noun ‘Jerry’. Similarly, the underlined phrase in the question, ‘Walking down the road’ is an adjective participle.

Now let us analyze the given options:
Option A) Gerund Phrase – This option is incorrect because a gerund phrase is seen when there is a verb gerund I.e. a verb ending in ‘-ing’ in a given phrase. For example, Walking down the road turned out to be very dangerous for him.
Option B) Past Participle Phrase – The past participle phrase is also an incorrect option. This is because the past participle does not use a verb ending with ‘-ing’. Rather, it uses the third form of the verb which is preceded by a helping verb. For e.g. I had walked down that road.
Option C) Present Participle Phrase – It is a phrase which uses the present participle or the continuous form of the verb (i.e. the –ing form). But for a phrase to be in the present participle, the –ing verb has to be preceded by a ‘be’ verb. For e.g. “I am walking”, “We are running” etc. Thus, this option is also wrong.
Option D) None – This is the correct option because Options A, B and C are incorrect and the correct category of the underlined phrase is “Adjective Participle”.

Thus, the correct answer is Option (D) None.

Note: Another way of using the –ing verb is in the form of an adverb participle. For instance, we have a sentence, “Since we did not want to miss our flight, we arrived at the airport three hours earlier”. Here the underlined phrase is acting as an adverb phrase for the main verb ‘arrived’. We can also write it as “Not wanting to miss our flight, we arrived at the airport three hours earlier.” Here the underlined phrase is an adverb participle (since it is using the –ing verb).