In
linguisticsLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
- As applied to English
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, it refers to the usage of a verb (in its -ing formThe continuous and progressive aspects are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective aspects. It is a verb category with two principal meaning components: duration and incompletion...
) as a noun (for example, the verb "learning" in the sentence "Learning is an easy process for some").
- As applied to French
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, it refers either to the adverbial participle—also called the gerundiveIn linguistics, a gerundive is a particular verb form. The term is applied very differently to different languages; depending on the language, gerundives may be verbal adjectives, verbal adverbs, or finite verbs...
—or to the present adjectival participleAdjectival participles are participles which are derived from verbs and which are used like adjectives. They contrast with verbal participles, which are considered to be forms of verbs rather than adjectives. In English for instance, adjectival participles may appear with modifiers typical of...
.
- As applied to Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, its form is based on the participle ending, similarly to English. The –ns ending is replaced with -ndus, and the preceding ā or ē is shortened. However, the gerund is only ever seen in the accusative form ("ndum"), genitive form ("ndi"), dative form ("ndo") or ablative form ("ndo") (see Latin conjugation.) If the gerund is needed in the nominative form, the present infinitiveIn grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
is used instead.
- As applied to Japanese
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, it designates verb and verbals adjective forms in dictionary form paired with the referral particle no, which turns the verbal into a concept or property noun.
- As applied to Portuguese
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, it refers to an adverbial participle (a verbal adverb), called gerúndio.
- As applied to Romanian
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, it refers to an adverbial participle (a verbal adverb), called the gerunziu, formed by appending -ând or -ind, to the verb stem, like in cântând/fugind".
- As applied to Spanish
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, it refers to an adverbial participleAdverbial participles are built out of a verb , and in most cases they play the role of the sentence element called adverbial in the grammar of some languages...
(a verbal adverb), called in Spanish the gerundio.
- As applied to Turkish
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, it refers to the Turkish verbal nouns formed by appending -ma or -me, depending on vowel harmonyVowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
, to the verb stem, like in "Yapma değil, Avrupa malı bu." ("It is not a fake, but produced in Europe" - not to confuse with the negational -ma postfix.) The Turkish gerund is rather similar in meaning and use to the English gerund.
- As applied to Hebrew
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, it refers either to the verb's action noun, or to the part of the infinitiveIn grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
following the infinitival prefix (also called the infinitival construct).
- As applied to West Frisian
West Frisian is a language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. West Frisian is the name by which this language is usually known outside the Netherlands, to distinguish it from the closely related Frisian languages of Saterland Frisian and North Frisian,...
, it refers to one of two verb forms frequently referred to as infinitives, this one ending in -n. It shows up in nominalizationIn linguistics, nominalization or nominalisation is the use of a verb, an adjective, or an adverb as the head of a noun phrase, with or without morphological transformation...
s and is selected by perception verbs.
In 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.
Etymology
The word 'gerund' in English comes from the Latin term
gerundium, of the same meaning.
Gerundium itself comes from the
gerundiveIn linguistics, a gerundive is a particular verb form. The term is applied very differently to different languages; depending on the language, gerundives may be verbal adjectives, verbal adverbs, or finite verbs...
of the Latin verb
gero,
gerundus, meaning "to be carried out".
Gerunds in English
In English, the gerund is identical in form to the present
participleIn linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
(ending in
-ing) and can behave as a
verbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
within a
clauseIn grammar, a clause is the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. In some languages it may be a pair or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in other languages in certain clauses the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase,...
(so that it may be modified by an
adverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
or have an
objectAn object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
), but the clause as a whole (sometimes consisting of only one word, the gerund itself) acts as a
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
within the larger sentence. For example: Eating this cake is easy.
In "Eating this cake is easy," "eating this cake," although traditionally known as a
phraseIn everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause....
, is referred to as a
non-finite clauseIn linguistics, a non-finite clause is a dependent clause whose verb is non-finite; for example, many languages can form non-finite clauses from infinitives...
in modern
linguisticsLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
. "Eating" is the verb in the clause, while "this cake" is the object of the verb. "Eating this cake" acts as a
noun phraseIn grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
within the sentence as a whole, though; the subject of the sentence is the non-finite clause, specifically eating
.
Other examples of the gerund:
I like swimming.
(direct object)
Swimming is fun. (
subjectThe subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
)
Not all nouns that are identical in form to the present participle are gerunds. The formal distinction is that a gerund is a
verbal nounIn linguistics, the verbal noun turns a verb into a noun and corresponds to the infinitive in English language usage. In English the infinitive form of the verb is formed when preceded by to, e.g...
– a noun derived from a verb that retains verb characteristics, that functions
simultaneously as a noun and a verb, while other nouns in the form of the present participle (ending in
-ing) are
deverbal nounsIn grammar, deverbal nouns are nouns derived from verbs or verb phrases; it is a form of nominalization . This can be found in the English language but also in many other languages...
, which function as common nouns, not as verbs at all. Compare:
- I like fencing. (gerund, an activity, could be replaced with "to fence")
- The white fencing adds to the character of the neighborhood. (deverbal, could be replaced with an object such as "bench")
Double nature of the gerund
As the result of its origin and development, the gerund has nominal and verbal properties. The
nominal characteristics of the gerund are as follows:
- The gerund can perform the function of subject
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
, objectAn object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
and predicativeIn grammar, a predicative is an element of the predicate of a sentence that supplements the subject or object by means of the verb. A predicative may be nominal or adjectival . If the complement after a linking verb is a noun or a pronoun, it is called a predicate nominative...
:
- Smoking endangers your health. (subject
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
)
- I like making people happy. (object
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
)
- The gerund can be preceded by a preposition:
- Like a noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
the gerund can be modified by a nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
in the possessive caseThe possessive case of a language is a grammatical case used to indicate a relationship of possession. It is not the same as the genitive case, which can express a wider range of relationships, though the two have similar meanings in many languages.See Possession for a survey of the different...
, a possessive adjectivePossessive adjectives, also known as possessive determiners, are a part of speech that modifies a noun by attributing possession to someone or something...
, or an adjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
:
- I wonder at John's keeping calm.
- Is there any objection to my seeing her?
- Brisk walking relieves stress.
The
verbal characteristics of the gerund include the following:
- The gerund of transitive verbs can take a direct object:
- I've made good progress in speaking Basque.
- The gerund can be modified by an adverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
:
- Breathing deeply helps you to calm down.
- The gerund has the distinctions of aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
and voice.
- Having read the book once before makes me more prepared.
- Being deceived can make someone feel angry.
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 will never 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.
With little change in meaning
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 passiveThe passive voice is a grammatical construction in which the subject of a sentence or clause denotes the recipient of the action rather than the performer...
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.
begin, continue, start; hate, like, love, prefer
With would
, the verbs hate, like, love
, and prefer
are usually followed by the to
-infinitiveIn grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
.
I would like to work there.
(more usual than working
)
When talking about sports, there is usually a difference in meaning between the infinitive and gerund (see the next section).
With a change in meaning
like, love, prefer
In some contexts, following these verbs with a to
-infinitive when the subject of the first verb is the subject of the second verb provides more clarity than a gerund.
I like to box.
(I enjoy doing it myself.)
I like boxing.
(Either I enjoy watching it, I enjoy doing it myself, or the idea of boxing is otherwise appealing.)
I do not like gambling, but I do like to gamble."
dread,
hate and
cannot bear:
These verbs are followed by a
to-infinitive when talking subjunctively (often 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.
- 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.)
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 her plans. (She did not tell me, although she should have.)
- She forgot telling me her 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.)
- I remembered going to work. (I remembered that I went to work.)
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.)
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.
stop, quit:
When the infinitive is used after 'stop' or 'quit', it means that the subject stops one activity and starts the activity indicated by the infinitive. If the gerund is used, it means that the subject stops the activity indicated by the gerund.
- She stopped to smell the flowers.
- She stopped smelling the flowers.
Or more concisely:
- She stopped walking to smell the flowers.
- He quit working there to travel abroad.
Gerunds preceded by a genitive
Because of its noun properties, the
genitiveIn grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
(possessive) case is preferred for a noun or pronoun preceding a gerund, which is functioning as the subject of the gerund's verbal element.
- We enjoyed their [genitive] singing.
This usage is preferred in formal writing or speaking. In casual speech, the objective case is sometimes used in place of the possessive:
- I do not see it making any difference. (I do not see its making any difference is correct.)
Using the possessive case with the gerund is applicable in all situations, for instance:
- He affected my going there.
- He affected your going there.
- He affected his/her/its going there.
- He affected our going there.
- He affected their going there.
- He affected Mary's going there.
The verbal action of the gerund belongs, in effect, to the subject practising it; thus, the possessive is required to clearly demonstrate that relationship.
In some situations, either the possessive or the nominative case may be logical, but with slightly different meanings; but when the nominative case is used the verbal element is a participle, not a gerund:
- The teacher's shouting startled the student. (Shouting is a gerund, and teacher's is a possessive noun indicating whose shouting is being talked about; but 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. A clearer way to write this sentence might be The teacher, shouting, startled the student.)
Either of these sentences means that the student was startled because the teacher was shouting, but the first places greater emphasis on the shouting by making it the subject of the sentence, while the second places greater emphasis on the teacher and is not using a gerund.
Despite such examples of a similar construction that uses a participle instead of a gerund, using a noun or pronoun in anything except the possessive case as the subject of a gerund (
He affected me going there) is incorrect in formal writing.
Gerunds and present participles
Insofar as there is a distinction between gerunds and present participles, it is generally fairly clear which is which. The subject or object of a preposition is a gerund. If, on the other hand, the word modifies a noun attributively or absolutely, it is a participle. The main source of confusion is when the word follows a verb, in which case it may be a predicate adjective and hence a participle, or a direct object or predicate nominative and hence a gerund. In this case, a few transformations can help distinguish the cases. 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 The passive voice is a grammatical construction in which the subject of a sentence or clause denotes the recipient of the action rather than the performer...
|
Asking Bill was suggested. |
*Asking Bill was kept. |
| Pronominal In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
substitution |
John suggested it. |
*John kept it. |
| Use as a noun |
John suggested the asking of Bill. |
*John kept the asking of Bill. |
| Replacement with a finite clause In grammar, a clause is the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. In some languages it may be a pair or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in other languages in certain clauses the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase,...
|
John suggested that Bill be asked. |
*John kept that Bill be asked. |
| Use with an objective or possessive subject |
John suggested our asking Bill. |
*John kept his asking Bill. |
| Clefting |
Asking Bill is what John suggested. |
*Asking Bill is what John kept. |
| Left dislocation |
Asking Bill John suggested. |
*Asking Bill John kept. |
None of these transformations is a perfect test, however.
English gerund-like words in other languages
English words ending in
-ing are often transformed into
pseudo-anglicismPseudo-anglicisms are words in languages other than English which were borrowed from English but are used in a way native English speakers would not readily recognize or understand. Pseudo-anglicisms often take the form of portmanteau words, combining elements of multiple English words to create a...
s in other languages, where their use is somewhat different from 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, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish; in Bulgarian, Dutch, French, Polish, and Russian
parking is a car park;
lifting is a facelift in Bulgarian, French, German, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Hebrew, and Spanish. The French word for shampoo is
(le) shampooing.
The gerund in popular culture
In the
MolesworthNigel Molesworth is the supposed author of a series of books , with cartoon illustrations by Ronald Searle....
books by
Geoffrey WillansHerbert Geoffrey Willans , an English author and journalist, is best known as the co-creator, with the illustrator Ronald Searle, of Nigel Molesworth, the "goriller of 3b and curse of St. Custard's"....
and
Ronald SearleRonald William Fordham Searle, CBE, RDI, is a British artist and cartoonist, best known as the creator of St Trinian's School. He is also the co-author of the Molesworth series....
, 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 JohnsonOwen McMahon Johnson was an American writer best remembered for his stories and novels cataloguing the educational and personal growth of the fictional character Dink Stover....
's "Lawrenceville Stories" feature a Latin teacher who constantly demands that his students determine whether a given word is a gerund or a
gerundiveIn linguistics, a gerundive is a particular verb form. The term is applied very differently to different languages; depending on the language, gerundives may be verbal adjectives, verbal adverbs, or finite verbs...
.
In the new episode of
Dan Vs.Dan Vs. is an American flash animated cartoon series created by Dan Mandel and Chris Pearson. The series premiered on January 1, 2011 on The Hub. Dan Vs. ended its first season on July 9, 2011. The series' second season began on November 19th and will continue through the 2011-2012 lineup.-Plot:The...
, "The Ninja", after Dan's milk carton exploded from the ninja's
shurikenA shuriken is a traditional Japanese concealed weapon that was generally used for throwing, and sometimes stabbing or slashing...
, a teenager said to Dan "Drinking problem much?" and Dan complained that the sentence had no verb, just a gerund.
See also
- Gerundive
In linguistics, a gerundive is a particular verb form. The term is applied very differently to different languages; depending on the language, gerundives may be verbal adjectives, verbal adverbs, or finite verbs...
- Infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
- Non-finite verb
In linguistics, a non-finite verb is a verb form that is not limited by a subject and, more generally, is not fully inflected by categories that are marked inflectionally in language, such as tense, aspect, mood, number, gender, and person...
- Participle
In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
- Verbal noun
In linguistics, the verbal noun turns a verb into a noun and corresponds to the infinitive in English language usage. In English the infinitive form of the verb is formed when preceded by to, e.g...