These are word's examples related to gerund. Click on any word to go to its word's detail page. Or, go to the definition of gerund.
A gerund can be either the subject or object of a sentence in English, e.g. 'Cycling is fun' or 'I enjoy cycling'.
Gerunds are verbal nouns, and I remember that they are used in a special way in Latin.
While purely indefinite examples are hard to come by, verbal gerunds do participate in the ambiguity patterns also found for bare nominal gerunds.
Purely indefinite readings appear to be more exceptional, yet in some contexts they provide a plausible interpretation of a given gerund construction.
In view of this, we could expect the subject gerunds to be the first to acquire the verbal traits characteristic of the participle.
As pointed out above, more than the other two gerund types, definite nominal gerunds tend to co-occur with prepositions other than the most frequent six.
A certain degree of functional differentiation is also apparent in combinations of definite nominal gerunds with the prepositions of, by and in.
More marginally, definite nominal gerunds can also be used to specify a (typically undesirable) result, which is then presented as an accessible fact.
In such uses, definite nominal gerunds draw on accessible knowledge on the part of the speaker for the identification of the event they refer to.
A few final words are in place concerning combinations of definite nominal gerunds with to.
With other prepositions, definite nominal gerunds remain relatively marginal throughout the period examined.
To start with, one's and oneself are in frequent use with to-infinitives and gerunds, or with an impersonal or exterior subject.
The increase in the frequency of -ndo constructions relative to lone-standing gerunds is highly significant.
In either case the two gerunds are symmetrically coordinated or parallel, in that each one could be construed as being in construction with the auxiliary.
Moreover, if a verb such as beware, must, and so on lacks the gerund form, it lacks the present-participial form as well and vice versa.
In the entire data set, only two bare nominal gerunds with to function as purpose adjuncts, which is hardly enough to speak of replacement.
These and other participial constructions recorded in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thus bear a close surface resemblance to some of the gerunds under discussion.
