Lesson 1c

Gerund x Noun x Participle

 

a)         It is the duty of the police to stop shooting Presidents.

X

b)         It is the duty of the police to stop the shooting of Presidents.

X

 

a) = gerund

b) = noun

c) = present participle

 

gerund = the –ing form of the verb when used in a partly nounlike way, as in No Smoking (in contrast to the same form used as a participle, e.g. Everyone was smoking.)

             = sometimes called verbal noun / verb-noun

 

If a word in -ing derived from a verb can inflect for  plural and lacks verbal force, it is normally considered to be a noun and excluded from the class of gerund (e.g. these delightful drawings). Similarly, -ing words followed by an of-phrase are classified as nouns (e.g. My drawing of the village.)

Unlike gerunds, true nouns cannot of course take an object and require a preposition to relate them to another noun.