3 The Gerund

Nominal Features of the Gerund

The nominal nature of the gerund reveals itself at the syntactic level, namely in its combinability and functions. Like the noun, the gerund can be preceded by:

1) a preposition, e.g.:

I'm tired of watching television

2) a noun in the genitive case or a possessive determiner

I remember Tom's complaining about the poor service in this hotel

Like the noun, the gerund can perform the functions of the following parts of the sentence.

1. Subject, e.g.:

Swimming is my favourite sport

2. Object, e.g.:

I like swimming

3. Predicative, e.g.:

My favourite sport is swimming

4. Attribute, both prepositional and non-prepositional. Cf: He was born with the gift of winning hearts

... do you like these running shoes?

5. Adverbial, e.g.:

.. one side of the gallery was used for dancing

Verbal Features of the Gerund

The verbal nature of the gerund reveals itself at the morphological and syntactic levels.

Morphologically, the verbal nature of the gerund manifests itself in the grammatical categories of phase and voice. The category of phase finds its expression in the opposition of non-perfect and perfect forms. The perfect gerund always denotes an action prior to the action rendered by the finite verb, e.g.:

He was ashamed of having shown even the slightest irritation

He liked neither reading aloud nor being read aloud to (W.S. Maugham).

Being the non-marked member of the voice opposition, the active gerund can also render the meaning common to the passive gerund. Thus, after the verbs need, want, require, deserve and the adjective worth the active gerund renders passive meaning. Cf :

My coat n eeds mending

This job wants doing at once

The book is well worth reading

Syntactically, the verbal nature of the gerund manifests itself in the following characteristics.

1. Its right-hand combinability with objects and adverbials, e.g.:

Sweeping the floor was one of Jack's duties

Sitting on a park bench was his favourite pastime

2. The function of realizing the verbal component of primary predication when the gerund makes part of a compound nominal or compound verbal predicate. Cf.:

The only remedy for such a headache as mine is going to bed

I kept glancing at her through the rest of the play

3. The function of realizing the verbal component of secondary predication when the gerund forms part of a complex member of the sentence, e.g.:

Forgive my speaking plainly - complex object. ... there is no chance of their getting married for years - complex attribute.

The Gerund and the Verbal Noun

The verbal noun, from which the gerund has developed, has not dropped out of use. Nowadays, the two forms co-exist. O. Jespersen does not differentiate them. But they should be distinguished because they are different. The gerund has nominal and verbal features; the verbal noun has no verbal features at all. It lacks the grammatical categories of phase and voice, and it never combines with an object or an adverbial.

But the verbal noun has more nominal features than the gerund. First, it can be used in the plural, e.g.:

Our likings are regulated by our circumstances (Ch. Bronte).

Second, it can be used in the genitive case, chiefly before the noun sake, e.g.:

I'm not talking just for talking's sake (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English).

Third, it can combine with both articles and other noun determiners. Cf.:

A good beginning is half the battle

Did democracy have its beginnings in Athens!

Fourth, the verbal noun can be modified by attributes, both prepositive and postpositive. Prepositive attributes are usually expressed by adjectives, postpositive - by prepositional word combinations. Cf:

When learning a foreign language, it's important to make a good beginning

I can't quite grasp the meaning of these figures

Participle I