Using gerunds appropriately

How to use gerunds and gerundive phrases with finite verbs

With Hope Ibiale, my coursemate, flaunting Cowrywise’s shirts as Campus Ambassadors

A gerund is one of the four non-finite verbs that we have in English. A gerund behaves exactly like a noun. That’s why it is called a verbal noun; this means it’s a noun that carries verbal property. In other words, it functions exactly like a noun; I mean that of being a subject, object, subject complement, and apposition to another nominal entity.

Verbs such as singing, playing, reading, running, sleeping, acting, fighting, walking, enjoying, cooking, working, hunting etc, can be called either a present participle or a gerund. It depends on the functions they perform in a sentence. Please read non-finite verbs to see the difference.

Let’s consider these examples of gerunds:

1. Smoking is dangerous to health.—”smoking” here is a gerund because it functions as the subject of the verb “is”;

2. I like eating.—”eating” here functions as a noun and it is the object of the verb “like”';

3. My hobby, writing, gives me joy.—”writing” here is a gerund and it functions as an apposition to another nominal entity “my hobby”.

The uses and functions of gerunds are limited to the functions of nouns that we have in English. 

All gerunds are followed by singular verbs, as you may have observed from the first and third examples above.

It makes sense, then, to have sentences like this:

1. The teacher does not like us our leaving the class early.

2. Do you mind me my asking that question?

3. I don’t like you your behaving that way.

4. She detests him his eating like that.

This is because possessive adjectives modify nouns, right? And the gerunds in the examples above are nouns. You gerrit? Summarily, gerunds are nouns. Therefore, use possessive adjectives (my, your, his, our, their) with gerunds, as you would nouns.

Gerundive phrase

A gerundive phrase is a phrase consisting of a gerund as its head and any modifiers or objects associated with it. A whole gerundive phrase functions in a sentence just like a noun and can act as a subject, an object, or a subject complement.

Let’s consider some examples:

1. I enjoy shopping with friends.—object of the transitive verb “enjoy”;

2. Cutting vegetables with a sharp knife requires caution.—subject of the verb “requires”;

3. My sister avoids cooking large dinners.—object of the transitive verb “avoids”;

4. Speaking loudly in the library disturbs other students.—subject of the verb “disturbs”;

5. Drinking many beers is dangerous to health.—subject of the verb “is”;

6. My favourite hobby is listening to audio books.—complement of the subject “my favourite hobby”;

A gerundive phrase behaves just like a noun. The only observable thing is that it has a gerund as its head and other modifiers coming right after it. In this case, we are going to treat all of them (the gerund and the modifiers coming after it) as singular property. Our main consideration here is not the object or modifier closest to the verb, therefore there can’t be an agreement of the verb with the object/modifier as we may have observed in example 5 (drinking many beers are is…).

All gerundive phrases are treated as a whole and they attract singular verbs (as you may have noticed in example 2, 4, and 5 above, regardless of the objects or modifiers closest to the verbs.

I’m signing out here. I hope you enjoy reading this newsletter as much as I enjoy writing and sending them to you. Please like, share with your friends and subscribe to support my work. Till I write to you again, always remember to drink a lot of water and mind your own business. Ciao!

---

Yours in English,

Francis