Gerund

Key takeaways

Gerund belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Gerund to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Gerund from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ger) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, it is one that functions as a noun. The name is derived from Late Latin gerundium, meaning "which is to be carried out". In English, the gerund has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiable by an adverb and being able to take a direct object. The term "-ing form" is often used in English to refer to the gerund specifically. Traditional grammar makes a distinction within -ing forms between present participles and gerunds, a distinction that is not observed in such modern grammars as A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language and The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.

Traditional use

The Latin gerund, in a restricted set of syntactic contexts, denotes the sense of the verb in isolation after certain prepositions, and in certain uses of the genitive, dative, and ablative cases. It is very rarely combined with a dependent sentence element such as an object. To express such concepts, the construction with the adjectival gerundive is preferred. By contrast, the term gerund has been used in the grammatical description of other languages to label verbal nouns used in a wide range of syntactic contexts and with a full range of clause elements. Thus, English grammar uses gerund to mean an -ing form used in non-finite clauses such as playing on computers. This is not a normal use for a Latin gerund. Moreover, the clause may function within a sentence as subject or object, which is impossible for a Latin gerund.

Playing on computers is fun. (-ing clause as subject) I like playing on computers (-ing clause as object) The contrast with the Latin gerund is also clear when the clause consists of a single word.

Computing is fun. ("gerund" as subject) I like computing ("gerund" as object) Latin never uses the gerund in this way, but instead uses the infinitive. Traditional English grammar distinguishes non-finite clauses used as above from adverbial use, adjective-like modification of nouns, and use in finite progressive (continuous) forms

Playing on computers, they whiled the day away. The boys playing on computers are my nephews. They are always playing on computers. In these uses playing is traditionally labelled a participle. Traditional grammar also distinguishes -ing forms with exclusively noun properties as in

The objection to the term gerund in English grammar is that -ing forms are frequently used in ways that do not conform to the clear-cut three-way distinction made by traditional grammar into gerunds, participles and nouns.

Latin gerund

Form The Latin gerund is a form of the verb. It is composed of:

the infectum stem (the stem used to form present and imperfect tense forms) a vowel appropriate to the verb class or conjugation of the verb the suffix -nd- a nominal inflectional ending For example,

Related gerundive forms are composed in a similar way with adjectival inflexional endings.

Function The four inflections are used for a limited range of grammatical functions

These functions could be fulfilled by other abstract nouns derived from verbs such as vēnātiō 'hunting'. Gerunds are distinct in two ways.

Every Latin verb can regularly form a gerund A gerund may function syntactically as the head of a verb phrase: for instance, the gerund of a transitive verb may take a direct object in the accusative case, e.g., ad discernendum vocis verbi figuras 'for discerning figures of speech', hominem investigando opera dabo 'I will devote effort to investigating the man'. However, this was a rare construction. Writers generally preferred the gerundive construction, in which the gerundive adjective was inflected to agree with the noun acting as its object: such as res evertendae reipublicae 'matters concerning the overthrow of the state' (literally 'of the state being overthrown'). When people first wrote grammars of languages such as English, and based them on works of Latin grammar, they adopted the term gerund to label non-finite verb forms with these two properties.

Gerunds in various languages Meanings of the term gerund as used in relation to various languages are listed below.

Latin and Romance Latin has the non-finite gerundium, formed with -andum, -endum and noun inflexions. It is syntactically equivalent to a noun, except in the nominative and accusative cases, which use the infinitive. In particular the ablative case forms (-ando, -endo) were used adverbially. Latin grammars written in English use the form gerund. See the section above for further detail. Several Romance languages have inherited the form, but without case inflections. They use it primarily in an adverbial function, comparably to the Latin ablative use. The same form may be used in an adjectival function and to express progressive aspect meaning. These languages do not use the term present participle, since it refers to a different form. Grammars of these languages written in English may use the form gerund.

Italian gerundio: stem form + -ando or -endo Spanish gerundio: stem form + -ando or -iendo Portuguese gerúndio: stem form + -ando, -endo or -indo Romanian gerunziu: stem form + -ând(u) or -ind(u) Catalan and French have inherited not the gerund form but the Latin present participle form in -nt. Catalan gerundi: stem form + -ant or -ent French stem form + -ant. French grammar maintains a distinction between: participe présent when the form is used adjectivally, and may be inflected for gender and number. gérondif when the form is used adverbially, without inflection, generally after the preposition en. In Modern French, the gérondif cannot be used to express progressive meaning. Grammars of French written in English may use the forms gerundive and present participle.

Germanic In the earliest stages of the West Germanic languages, the infinitive was inflected after a preposition. These dative and, more rarely, genitive case forms are sometimes called gerundium or gerund or West Germanic gerund.

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Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Gerund

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Gerund claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Gerund before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Gerund ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Gerund

In research: Gerund appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Gerund in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Gerund is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Syntactic entities, Verb types, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Gerund outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Gerund in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Gerund means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Gerund out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Gerund in simple terms?

In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ger) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, it is one that functions as a noun. The name is derived from Late Latin gerundium, meaning "which is to be carried out".

Why does Gerund matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Gerund?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Gerund.