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Linguistics

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What is a Gerund?

By J. Beam
Updated: May 23, 2024
Views: 43,789
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While not one of the traditional eight parts of speech in the English language, a gerund is a specific type of word applied to English grammar. The word stems from a verbal, or a verb form, but does not act as a verb in a sentence. There are three types of verbals: gerunds, participles, and infinitives. Though a gerund is formed from a verb and indicates an action or state of being, it acts as a noun and therefore occupies a place in a sentence where a noun normally would, such as a subject, a direct object, or an object of a preposition.

Without exception, a gerund always ends in –ing. It may be confused with a participle, which is a verbal that most often ends in -ing or -ed, but a participle acts as an adjective modifying a noun rather than a noun itself. The following words ending in -ing could be gerunds or participles, depending on how they are used in a sentence.

  • Swimming
  • Talking
  • Traveling
  • Laughing

While gerunds can be difficult to identify in some sentence structures, readers can remember that they are always used as nouns and always end in -ing. The following sentence is an example where the word sleeping is a gerund complementing the subject: My dog's favorite pastime is sleeping.

In this example, "sleeping" acts as a compliment to the subject. It identifies what the pastime is rather than what the dog is doing. In a different but similar sentence, a noun could replace sleeping as a subject compliment: My dog’s favorite toy is a ball.

A gerund phrase is a group of words that contains a gerund and also functions as a subject, object, or indirect object. The other words modify or compliment the expressed action or state of being that the gerund word is based on. When constructing sentences with these verbals, the gerund or phrase rarely, if ever, requires punctuation.

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Discussion Comments
By StarJo — On Aug 02, 2012

@Oceana - “Sleeping” would still be a gerund in this sentence. Gerunds can function as subjects, so as long as rearranging the sentence doesn't make it act as a verb, it will remain a gerund.

I remember having to identify gerunds in elementary school. At first, it was daunting, but after the teacher explained that they always end in -ing and serve as nouns, identifying them became a lot easier. Those are two rather solid clues.

By Oceana — On Aug 02, 2012

If you switched the sentence in the article around so that it read, “Sleeping is my dog's favorite pastime,” would “sleeping” still be considered a gerund? I have always found certain concepts of grammar, like gerunds, to be confusing. I think the answer is “yes,” but I just wanted to get some other opinions.

By anon53249 — On Nov 19, 2009

Since when my teacher went over this, i need help with a example like ( Cheering the team gave me a sore throat). what would that be: subject, predicate nominative, direct object, or object of preposition?

By anon48403 — On Oct 12, 2009

3 types of GERUND: 1) Possing 2) Accusative 3) Ing-of... Please can someone explain them with examples? Thank you

By malena — On Mar 02, 2008

There are two types of gerunds: (1) nominalizations, also called nominal gerunds or determiner gerunds; and (2) sentential, also called VP gerundives or NP gerunds. The first type relates to a fact (e.g., the painting of Mona Lisa) whereas the latter type relates to an action (e.g., throwing a football).

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