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I read a sentence like this

Negotiating for dummies

I know that a gerund is after a preposition, so why in this sentence a gerund "Negotiating" is before a preposition "for"

Thanks for reading

user173717
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  • What do you mean when you say "gerund is after preposition"? Do you have a problem with "talking to", for example? Whatever this rule you're thinking of is, I'm afraid someone hasn't given you the complete picture, or has outright misled you. – Dan Bron Mar 17 '16 at 14:39
  • "Negotiating" as used in your sentence is a noun. Prepositions can precede or follow gerunds, like in : I am tired of negotiating for dummis. –  Mar 17 '16 at 14:45
  • @Josh61 Where is that z coming from? Does negotiating have a z in it in Italian or something? – Dan Bron Mar 17 '16 at 14:47
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    @DanBron - typos... anyway yes...the italian is "negoziare" –  Mar 17 '16 at 14:48
  • Foreign languages make the best bitchslaps. XD – John Clifford Mar 17 '16 at 14:49
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it appears to be based on an uncommon misapprehension of gerunds in prepositional phrases. – choster Mar 17 '16 at 15:16
  • Oh sorry if this question is too stupid, I am learning Gerunds and Infinitives topic, so it is my misunderstanding to think that "Gerund must after preposition". – user173717 Mar 17 '16 at 15:42
  • Please consider also our sister site http://ell.stackexchange.com/ for your questions. –  Mar 17 '16 at 15:48

1 Answers1

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A gerund may follow a preposition -- we say it's the object of the preposition -- because a gerund has usage as a noun. And you'll find it in other places where nouns are required.

Subject: Negotiating is an important skill.
Direct Object: I hate negotiating.
Nominative Complement: That was some negotiating!

But a gerund is also a verb (it's the present participle, the inflected form made by adding -ing to the plain form of the verb). And so it is associated with the syntactic roles that verbs have. Consider the gerund clause

I watched him giving a man money for coffee.

There's a subject (him), a direct object (money), an indirect object (a man), and an adverbial prepositional phrase of purpose (for coffee). These are all roles associated with verbs.

deadrat
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