Gerund

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Not to be confused with gerundive.
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In linguistics, "gerund" is a term used to refer to various non-finite verb forms in various
languages:

• As applied to English, it refers to what might be called a verb's action noun (or,
alternatively, the name of an action), which is one of the uses of the -ing form.
This is also the term's use as applied to Latin; see Latin conjugation.
• As applied to Spanish and Portuguese, it refers to an adverbial participle (a verbal
adverb), called in Spanish the gerundio and in Portuguese the gerúndio.
• As applied to French, it refers either to the adverbial participle—also called the
gerundive—or to the present adjectival participle.
• As applied to Hebrew, it refers either to the verb's action noun, or to the part of
the infinitive following the infinitival prefix (also called the infinitival construct).
• As applied to Frisian, it refers to one of two verb forms frequently referred to as
infinitives, this one ending in -n. It shows up in nominalizations and is selected by
perception verbs.
• As applied to Japanese, it designates verb and adjective forms ending in -te or -de,
the continuative stem of an older perfective auxiliary verb.
• As applied to other languages, it may refer to almost any non-finite verb form;
however, it most often refers to an action noun, by analogy with its use as applied
to English or Latin.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Gerunds in English
o 1.1 Verb patterns with the gerund
 1.1.1 Verbs followed by a gerund or a to-infinitive
 1.1.2 Gerunds preceded by a genitive
o 1.2 Gerunds and present participles
o 1.3 English gerund-like words in other languages
 • 2 The gerund in popular culture
• 3 See also

• 4 External links

[edit] Gerunds in English

In English, the gerund is identical in form to the present participle (ending in -ing) and
can behave as a verb within a clause (so that it may be modified by an adverb or have an
object), but the clause as a whole (sometimes consisting of only one word, the gerund
itself) acts as a noun within the larger sentence. For example: Editing this article is easy.

In "Editing this article" (although this is traditionally known as a phrase, it is referred to

as a non-finite clause in modern linguistics), the word "Editing" behaves as a verb; the
phrase "this article" is the object of that verb. "Editing this article" acts as a noun phrase
within the sentence as a whole, though; it is the subject of the verb "is."

Other examples of the gerund:

• I like swimming. (direct object)

• Swimming is fun. (subject)

[edit] Verb patterns with the gerund

Verbs that are often followed by a gerund include admit, adore, anticipate, appreciate,
avoid, carry on, consider, contemplate, delay, deny, describe, detest, dislike, enjoy,
escape, fancy, feel, finish, give, hear, imagine, include, justify, listen to, mention, mind,
miss, notice, observe, perceive, postpone, practice, quit, recall, report, resent, resume,
risk, see, sense, sleep, stop, suggest, tolerate and watch. Additionally, prepositions are
often followed by a gerund.

For example:

• I quit smoking.
• We postponed making any decision.
• After two years of deciding, we finally made a decision.
• We heard whispering.
• They denied having avoided me.
• He talked me into coming to the party.
• They frightened her out of voicing her opinion.
• Kong is fighting for his love to JieJie.

[edit] Verbs followed by a gerund or a to-infinitive

With little change in meaning

begin, continue, start; hate, like, love, prefer

With would, the verbs hate, like, love, and prefer are usually followed by the to-infinitive.

• I would like to work there. (more usual than working)

In these examples, if the subject of the verb is not the subject of the second verb, the
second verb must be a gerund (instead of an infinitive).

If one is watching sports on television, for example, one can react to the programs only as
follows:

• I hate boxing.
• I love swimming.
• I enjoy golfing.

With a change in meaning

dread and hate:

These two verbs are followed by a to-infinitive when talking subjunctively (usually when
using to think), but by a gerund when talking about general dislikes.

• I dread / hate to think what she will do.

• I dread / hate seeing him.

forget and remember:

When these have meanings that are used to talk about the future from the given time, the
to-infinitive is used, but when looking back in time, the gerund.

• She forgot to tell me our plans. (She did not tell me, although she should have.)
• She forgot telling me our plans. (She told me, but then forgot having done so.)
• I remembered to go to work. (I remembered that I needed to go to work, and so I
did.)
• I remembered going to work. (I remembered that I had gone to work.)

cannot bear:

• I cannot bear to see you suffer like this. (You are suffering now.)
• I cannot bear being pushed around in crowds. (I never like that.)

go on:

• After winning the semi-finals, he went on to play in the finals. (He completed the
semi-finals and later played in the finals.)
 • He went on giggling, not having noticed the teacher enter. (He continued doing
so.)

mean:

• I did not mean to scare you off. (I did not intend to scare you off.)
• Taking a new job in the city meant leaving behind her familiar surroundings. (If
she took the job, she would have to leave behind her familiar surroundings.)

advise, recommend and forbid:

These are followed by a to-infinitive when there is an object as well, but by a gerund
otherwise.

• The police advised us not to enter the building, for a murder had occurred. (Us is
the object of advised.)
• The police advised against our entering the building. (Our is used for the gerund
entering.)

consider, contemplate and recommend:

These verbs are followed by a to-infinitive only in the passive or with an object pronoun.

• People consider her to be the best. – She is considered to be the best.

• I am considering sleeping over, if you do not mind.

regret:

• We regret to inform you that you have failed your exam. (polite or formal form of
apology)
• I very much regret saying what I said. (I wish that I had not said that.)

try:

When a to-infinitive is used, the subject is shown to make an effort at something, attempt
or endeavor to do something. If a gerund is used, the subject is shown to attempt to do
something in testing to see what might happen.

• Please try to remember to post my letter.

• I have tried being stern, but to no avail.

[edit] Gerunds preceded by a genitive

Because of its noun properties, the genitive (possessive case) is preferred for a noun or
pronoun preceding a gerund.
 • We enjoyed their [genitive] singing.

This usage is preferred in formal writing. The objective case is often used in place of the
possessive, especially in casual situations:

• I do not see it making any difference.

In some cases, either the possessive or the objective case may be logical:

• The teacher's shouting startled the student. (Shouting is a gerund, and teacher's is
a possessive pronoun. The shouting is the subject of the sentence.)
• The teacher shouting startled the student. (Shouting is a participle describing the
teacher. This sentence means The teacher who was shouting startled the student.
In this sentence, the subject is the teacher herself.)

Either of these sentences could mean that the student was startled because the teacher was
shouting.

Using the objective case can be awkward if the gerund is singular but the other noun is
plural. It can look like a problem with subject-verb agreement:

• The politicians' debating was interesting.

One might decide to make to be plural so that debating can be a participle.

• The politicians debating were interesting.

[edit] Gerunds and present participles

Insofar as there is a distinction between gerunds and present participles, it is generally

fairly clear which is which; a gerund or participle that is the subject or object of a
preposition is a gerund if it refers to the performance of an action (but present participles
may be used substantively to refer to the performer of an action), while one that modifies
a noun attributively or absolutely is a participle. The main source of potential ambiguity
is when a gerund-participle follows a verb; in this case, it may be seen either as a
predicate adjective (in which case it is a participle), or as a direct object or predicate
nominative (in either of which cases it is a gerund). In this case, a few transformations
can help distinguish them. In the table that follows, ungrammatical sentences are marked
with asterisks, per common linguistic practice; it should be noted that the transformations
all produce grammatical sentences with similar meanings when applied to sentences with
gerunds but either ungrammatical sentences, or sentences with completely different
meanings, when applied to sentences with participles.

Transformation Gerund use Participle use

 (none) John suggested asking Bill. John kept asking Bill.

Passivization Asking Bill was suggested. *Asking Bill was kept.

Pronominal substitution John suggested it. *John kept it.

John suggested the asking *John kept the asking of

Use as a noun
of Bill. Bill.

John suggested that Bill be *John kept that Bill be

Replacement with a finite clause
asked. asked.

Use with an objective or John suggested our asking *John kept his asking
possessive subject Bill. Bill.

Asking Bill is what John *Asking Bill is what

Clefting
suggested. John kept.

Left dislocation Asking Bill John suggested. *Asking Bill John kept.

None of these transformations is a perfect test, however.

[edit] English gerund-like words in other languages

English words ending in -ing are often transformed into pseudo-anglicisms in other
languages, where their use is somewhat different than in English itself. In many of these
cases, the loanword has functionally become a noun rather than a gerund. For instance,
camping is a campsite in Bulgarian, Dutch, French, Italian, Romanian, Russian, and
Spanish; in Bulgarian, Dutch, French, Polish, and Russian parking is a parking lot (car
park in British English); lifting is a facelift in Bulgarian, French, German, Italian, Polish,
Romanian, and Spanish. The French word for shampoo is (le) shampooing.

[edit] The gerund in popular culture

In the Molesworth books by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle, Searle included a series
of cartoons on the private life of the gerund, intended to parody the linguistic snobbery of
Latin teachers' striving after strict grammatical correctness and the difficulty experienced
by students in comprehending the construction.

Owen Johnson's "Lawrenceville Stories" feature a Latin teacher who constantly demands
that his students determine whether a given word is a gerund or a gerundive.

The webcomic A Softer World had a comic about doing something verb-wise while
sitting in a tree, with the alt-text "I want us to gerund, essentially."