GERUND BOOK

4 Types of Gerunds and Gerund Phrase

 

A gerund is one of three classes of words called verbals — words based on verbs and expressing an action or a state of being but serving another grammatical function. (The other two are participles and infinitives.) A gerund, which functions as a noun, can consist of a single word or a phrase.
The four types of gerunds and gerund phrases follow:

1. Subject
Gardening is my favorite hobby. (Gardening is normally a verb, but here it is the name of an activity.)
Gardening in the summertime is a challenge because of the heat. (The gerund is followed by a modifying adverbial phrase, forming a gerund phrase.)

2. Direct Object
My neighbors admire my gardening. (The admiration is not for the action of gardening, but for the results of the action.)
I am enjoying my gardening this year. (The direct object of the subject is “my gardening this year.”)

3. Object of Preposition
I have received several awards for my gardening. (The awards have been given for the results of the activity.)
Some people consider my interest in gardening an obsession. (The gerund phrase is “gardening an obsession.”)

4. Subject Complement

A subject complement is a word or phrase which follows a linking verb (e.g., to be, to become, to appear, to feel, to look, to smell, to taste) and describes or identifies the subject. A subject complement is either an adjective, a noun, or a pronoun. For example (subject complements shaded):

 My favorite hobby is gardening. (Again, gardening is described as something done, not the act of doing it. The statement is the inverse of the first sentence in this group; here “My favorite hobby” is the subject, and gardening is its complement.)
I do my gardening in the morning. (The phrase “gardening in the morning” is the subject complement.)
Confusion with Present Participle Phrases
If a sentence resembling one of these statements includes a comma, it’s likely to contain a present participle phrase, not a gerund phrase. For example, the sentence “Gardening in the summertime, I built up a resistance to hot weather” contains a present participle phrase, which includes a participle, a verb functioning as an adjective or an adverb.

GERUND AS NOUNS

A person is born with a liking for profit. * He hadn't developed a liking for her. * She showed in various ways a strong liking for England and the English.* The boy discovered something on the menu to his liking and enthusiastically pointed it out to his father.*  But life on a farm was not to his liking, and at sixteen he left home and set off to make a living in some other way. * I used them a lot over the years, not always to the FBI liking which didn't help my career but I found they often work.

 

GERUND AS COMPLEMENT OF "To be"

One of life's pleasures is having breakfast in bed.

The hardest thing about learning English is understanding the gerund.

GERUND AS A DIRECT OBJECT

Love means never having to say you're sorry. (Love story)

Look, if America - if being an American means anything, it means not having to lie under oath, not even for the president.
GERUND AFTER PREPOSITIONS

I am used to driving on the left.

GERUND AFTER PREPOSITIONS THAT STAND ALONE

A successful life is one that is lived through understanding and pursuing one's own path.
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.