English Grammar Drills - Mark Lester 2009
Gerunds and gerund phrases
6 Gerunds and Infinitives
Part 1 Noun Phrases
Gerunds and infinitives are verb forms used as nouns. (Infinitives can also be used as other parts of speech, but in this chapter we will deal only with infinitives used as nouns.) Here are some examples of gerunds and infinitives used as subjects (in italics).
Gerunds
Breathing is difficult when you are at high altitudes.
Eating was the last thing on my mind.
Driving is a privilege, not a right.
Swimming is my only real form of exercise.
Infinitives
To live is the goal of every creature.
To doubt is to hesitate.
To lose would be unthinkable.
To refuse would be dishonorable.
Gerunds and gerund phrases
Gerunds are the present participle forms of verbs. Present participles are formed by adding -ing to the base (or dictionary) forms of verbs. Present participles are mostly regular. The most common variation is the result of normal spelling rules for final silent e and doubled consonant spellings. For example, the final e of hope is dropped when we add a suffix beginning with a vowel: hope-hoping; and the final consonant of hop doubles when we add a suffix beginning with a vowel: hop-hopping. The double consonant rule does not apply to words that do not have the stress on the last syllable (budget-budgeting) or when the final consonant is preceded by two vowels (sleep-sleeping).
Exercise 6.1
The base or dictionary forms of some verbs are listed in the first column. In the second column, write the gerund (present participle) form of each verb. All of the words follow normal spelling rules.
Base form Gerund (present participle)
advertise advertising
1. amuse ...
2. become
3. choose
4. clap
5. date
6. fit
7. focus
8. give
9. group
10. judge
11. loop
12. manage
13. mine
14. model
15. profit
16. research
17. service
18. stay
19. travel
20. veto
A gerund phrase is a gerund together with all of its modifiers and/or complements. The difference between a gerund and a gerund phrase is exactly the same as the difference between a noun and a noun phrase. For example, compare the following pairs of gerunds and gerund phrases. The gerunds are in italics, and the entire gerund phrase is underlined.
Working takes all my waking hours.
Working on this project takes all my waking hours.
Complaining won’t do you any good.
Complaining about the poor service won’t do you any good.
Running really helps me lose weight.
My running twenty miles a week really helps me lose weight.
Working out takes a lot of self-discipline.
Working out every day at the gym takes a lot of self-discipline.
Since gerund phrases are noun phrases, they can always be identified by the third-person pronoun replacement test (see Chapter 4). Gerund phrases (as well as infinitive phrases) are always singular, and since they are inanimate, gerund (and infinitive) phrases can always be replaced by it. For example:
To this point, we have only looked at gerund phrases that function as subjects. Gerunds can play all noun roles: subject, object of a verb, object of a preposition, and predicate nominative (the complement of a linking verb). Here are some examples of gerund phrases playing the other roles:
Object of a verb
Object of a preposition
Since gerunds are derived from verbs, adverbs that originally modified the verb underlying the gerund can also modify the gerund derived from that verb. For example, consider the following sentence:
She stressed the importance of always meeting our commitments on time.
The adverb always modifies the gerund meeting.
Exercise 6.2
Underline the gerund phrases in the following sentences. Confirm your answers by replacing the gerund phrase with it.
1. Putting the schedule on the website really made it much easier to plan our meetings.
2. I vaguely recall hearing some discussion about that.
3. We need to talk about solving the quality control problems.
4. His weakness was trying to please everybody.
5. The consultants recommended cutting back on a few of our less important projects.
6. Working such long hours put a terrible strain on all of us.
7. Getting it right the first time is the best approach.
8. They are not happy about having to take such a late flight.
9. The problem is getting enough time to do everything.
10. We barely avoided sliding into the ditch.
11. Arriving at the airport a couple of hours early turned out to be a really good thing.
12. We all voted for ordering in pizza.
13. He always insists on doing the whole thing by himself.
14. Acting so quickly saved us a lot of trouble.
15. The problem was attaching such a big file to the e-mail.
16. Forget about leaving early.
17. Knowing the right thing and doing the right thing are not the same.
18. We have to focus on achieving results.
19. Getting off to such a bad start took away from our later successes.
20. Seeing is believing.
One of the hardest things about identifying gerunds is telling apart a verb in a progressive tense from a gerund that follows a linking verb. For example, compare the following sentences:
Progressive tense: The cat was getting ready to pounce.
Gerund: My big concern was getting enough sleep.
As you can see, we have exactly the same sequence of verbs, was getting, in both sentences. In more general terms, how can we tell when some form of be + a present participle is a progressive tense (be as a helping verb + a present participle verb) or be as a main verb followed by a gerund? Here are the differences between our two example sentences:
Fortunately, there are two reliable ways of telling them apart. We can always change a progressive verb into a simple form. In the case of our example, we can change the past progressive was getting to the simple past tense got:
Progressive tense: The cat was getting ready to pounce.
Simple past: The cat got ready to pounce.
When we try to do the same thing with the gerund, the result is nonsensical:
Gerund: My big concern was getting enough sleep.
Simple past: X My big concern got enough sleep.
The other test is the third-person substitution test for gerund phrases. Here is the test applied to both sentences:
Clearly, it does not equal getting ready to pounce. When we apply the same test to the gerund phrase, it makes perfect sense:
In this case, it does indeed make sense as a substitute for getting enough sleep.
Exercise 6.3
Each of the following sentences contains a sequence of some form of the verb be followed by a present participle. Underline each progressive verb or gerund phrase and write progressive or gerund above it, and then confirm your answer by applying one of the tests discussed previously: paraphrasing a progressive as a simple tense or replacing a gerund phrase with it.
1. Our effort was showing a definite improvement in sales.
2. My worry is being late for an important meeting.
3. The kids were playing in the backyard.
4. The kids’ favorite activity is playing in the backyard.
5. John’s idea of a good time is watching football on TV.
6. Sally was studying classical Greek in Athens last summer.
7. Sally’s great ambition is studying classical Greek some summer.
8. The problem was getting stuck in traffic on the way home.
9. The worst thing is losing a really close game that we could have won.
10. We are meeting them at a restaurant near the station.