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I've been studying the Huddleston and Pullum book for four months now. So far only one thing confuses me: the identity of gerund. Is it a noun or a verb?

  1. His constant smoking upset me. smoking seems noun because of adjective constant.
  2. Him/His constantly smoking upset me. smoking seems to be verb because of adverb constantly.
  3. Him/His smoking cigars upset me. smoking seems to be a verb because of object cigars.

"His smoking upset me." So is this smoking gerund a noun or verb? Because there is no differentiation, is it both verb and noun? Maybe it's new word category?

Also his seems to be both sometimes a subject and at other times a possessive determiner. Is that correct?

tchrist
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The Beefer Fan
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    I think it's General Reference that a gerund is an English noun formed from a verb by adding -ing. And in OP's example "His smoking upset me" it's obvious *smoking* is a *noun, since it's being used as the subject* of the verb *to upset*. So it must be a gerund. – FumbleFingers Oct 30 '14 at 13:30
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    Before I visited this site, I would have told you a gerund is a "noun with the force of a verb", but now I don't think that's true; and in fact, I think I once read our resident professor of English and grammar, @John Lawler, argue that a gerund is neither a noun nor a verb, but a fiction. Can't seem to find that post now, though. – Dan Bron Oct 30 '14 at 13:32
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    Oh, and here's a whole long thing by John on the topic of gerunds, offsite. Sufficient and high-quality material for an answer, if anyone wants to take a swing at it (not me, I don't pretend to know how to spell grammar). – Dan Bron Oct 30 '14 at 13:38
  • @dan Not to worry. You can find Prof. Lawler himself right here on ELU. – Kris Oct 30 '14 at 13:38
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    John also says I would say *chickens* in *The catching of the chickens was hard work* is just a noun, not a gerund, whence the article; but in *Catching chickens was hard work, it's the verb in a gerund complement* construction. Presumably he meant I would say catching..., not chickens**, but his point there is an obscure level of detail not relevant to OP here. – FumbleFingers Oct 30 '14 at 13:43
  • @FumbleFingers Obscure to you, perhaps, but it is still correct. There is no gerund involved once you have a deverbal noun: it is *deverbal* — no verb. You can no longer do verby things with it. Not even your mother’s best knitting is a gerund, sir. There is a world of difference between that and knitting you a sweater, and just because you fail to see it does not mean it does not exist or is somehow immaterial. – tchrist Oct 31 '14 at 00:37
  • @tchrist: You have me at a loss there. John asserts that *catching chickens is hard work* is not a gerund, whereas the first example in your answer asserts that *tricking people is bad* is a gerund. I have no position on these terminological niceties, but I think the fact that you two guys can make such apparently contradictory assertions justifies my calling it an *obscure level of detail*. – FumbleFingers Oct 31 '14 at 12:41
  • @FumbleFingers You misread him. The early-morning catching of the chickens is not a gerund, but catching the chickens early the morning is. See also my knitting examples. – tchrist Oct 31 '14 at 13:13
  • @tchrist: You misread me. I'm not really interested in taking sides in this hair-splitting, but in John's comment he's specifically distinguishing what he calls a gerund complementizer construction from a plain "gerund". I only linked to that comment of his because I couldn't find one where he called a gerund a "fiction" as mentioned by Dan. And I only said it was an "obscure level of detail" because I think that's what it is from the perspective of the OP here. – FumbleFingers Oct 31 '14 at 13:53
  • @FumbleFingers According to that reasoning to live would be a noun, because in to live is to learn it a subject. But acually, subjects aren't nouns. Subject is a function not a category of word! :) (The OP btw, even if their English isn't very good certainly has a subtle and fine grained understanding of syntax!!) :) – Araucaria - Him Nov 06 '14 at 10:47
  • @Araucaria: But I'm not doing any reasoning (unless you count the fact that I reason John knows what he's talking about, because he's a linguistics professor emeritus). I'm simply citing his comment to show that at a certain level these things get complicated. But my first comment was because at the simpler level relevant to OP here, things are, well, simple . – FumbleFingers Nov 06 '14 at 14:15
  • @FumbleFingers Hmm, ok, got that. But looking at his examples he seems to have a handle on some of the subtler points ... – Araucaria - Him Nov 06 '14 at 14:21
  • @Araucaria: Noting your comments and edit, I assume you voted to reopen, and you're steering the question towards When is a gerund supposed to be preceded by a possessive pronoun? I'm a simple guy, and it seems to me possessive *his* implies a noun (gerund) regardless of preceding/following *constant[ly] / cigars*. Maybe the current question really is more complex than that, but your added new tag "famous controversy" just makes it look like a dup of my link in this comment. – FumbleFingers Nov 06 '14 at 14:57
  • ...apropos which, I'm not convinced "famous controversy" is an appropriate tag for any ELU questions (any SO questions in general, come to that). Maybe that specific point should be kicked around in meta, regardless of the merits of reopening this question. – FumbleFingers Nov 06 '14 at 14:59
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    Sigh - This is what happens when you go on vacation. If it ends with -ing and it's got a direct object, it's a verb and therefore a gerund. If it ends with -ing and it takes an article, it's a noun and therefore not a gerund. A Gerund is a construction using the -ing form of the verb. It's the verb of a certain type of subordinate clause (a "gerund clause" or "gerund phrase") that appears in some constructions, usually governed by the matrix verb, of which the gerund clause is usually the object or, less commonly, the subject. I.e, it's a noun clause; that's the confusion. – John Lawler Dec 09 '14 at 01:53
  • It's not our fault. There are several good reasons for being confused about this construction. One is that the -ing ending in English has so many uses. It can form nouns, gerunds (verbs), adjectives, or participles (verbs). English shouldn't have been designed this way. – Greg Lee Mar 16 '19 at 17:07

4 Answers4

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Since you mentioned Huddleston and Pullum, this answer will be based on the terminology that they use. Huddleston and Pullum use the term "gerund-participle" instead of "gerund" because they reject the traditional distinction between gerunds and present participles.

The gerund-participle is a verb form. It is not a noun. A clause headed by a gerund-participle can be used like a noun phrase (NP) in that it can function as the subject of a clause, or the complement of a verb or of a preposition.

Words ending in -ing can belong to various parts of speech: they can be

  • verbs (in the gerund-participle form)

  • nouns (deverbal nouns such as "building" or "thinking" in "a building" or "good thinking")

  • adjectives (deverbal/departicipial adjectives such as "exciting" in "very exciting")

  • prepositions (e.g. "during" in "I worked for a number of years, during which I met many different kinds of people")

Sometimes words of different categories can be used in the same kind of grammatical context. For example, in the context "It is ____", the blank space could be filled with a verb in the gerund-participle form, or it could be filled with an adjective. The fact that a gerund-participle clause can be used the same contexts as a noun phrase does not mean that a gerund "is a noun". See Araucaria's answer to "How can I prove a word is a noun?" for more detailed discussion of this point.

Of course, there are different approaches to grammar. There may be some definitions of "noun" for which it makes sense to categorize a gerund as a noun, but it's not a noun according to Huddleston and Pullum's definition.

herisson
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I'm a bit astonished about the long discussions in the post How can I prove a word is a noun? I admit that there a certain problems, especially with gerunds.

  • Smoking cigarettes is unhealty.

In this example, containing a gerund with an object, it is indeed a bit difficult to say to which word class "smoking" belongs. Is it a noun or a verb?

Traditionally the gerund is seen as a verb form with a double nature. It can behave as a noun and as a verb.

I think it would be practical to see the gerund also as a special word class, a noun-verb thing. In this way we could avoid a lot of problems that arise about the word class noun when we come across gerunds with objects.

My question: Would it be practical to see gerunds as a word class of its own?

Community
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rogermue
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  • Are you making up your own grammar of today's standard English? – F.E. Feb 24 '15 at 09:23
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    Why don't you post that as a question? It would give us some interesting posts!!! – Araucaria - Him Feb 24 '15 at 11:16
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    @F.E. - Yes, I do have my own grammar because it must fit for a whole group of languages and because the traditional description of language is in my view cumbersome, to say the least. But that is my private affair und I don't use my grammar notation here. - But seeing the endless discussions about the definition of a noun and a simple checking procedure that all center around gerunds I find it reasonable to separate the gerund problem from the word class noun and see it as a separate word class. Grammar is in constant movement. And by the way, it was a question or a suggestion. – rogermue Feb 24 '15 at 15:23
  • "Smoking cigarettes is unhealthy." When you ask is "smoking" a noun or a verb, why do you call it a gerund if a gerund is supposed to be a noun? I would call that form of word the present participle, that would allow for both, but doesn't specify one or the other. – Zebrafish Mar 16 '19 at 17:13
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His/Him are not interchangeable here.

His is possessive. The following are all nouns, and smoking is a gerund because it is a noun formed from a verb by adding 'ing':

His smoking upset me.
His attitude annoyed me.
His thoughtfulness pleased me.

It's like a trait or quality that he has, the fact that he smokes.

On the other hand Him smoking upset me means that it was the 'doing' part of smoking which was upsetting.

Him [sitting there] smoking [while I had the children with me] upset me.

So here I would say it was a verb. I don't know what part of grammar him is here, but there are lots of very knowledgeable people on this site who probably know.

Neeku
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Mynamite
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    I'm sorry but I think this is not correct. – The Beefer Fan Oct 30 '14 at 15:11
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    @TheBeeferFan Would you like to explain why? – Mynamite Oct 30 '14 at 16:01
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    I am sorry my friend. Acording to grammar book Pullum and Huddlestone, in non-finite participial clauses there is choice of his (genitive) or him (accusative) for subject of this clause. So we can say "Him smoking upset me." or "His smoking upset me." So his and him are interchangeable. genitive is more formal. – The Beefer Fan Oct 31 '14 at 13:06
  • @TheBeeferFan I agree that both words can be used, but they are not interchangeable, they mean different things as I tried to explain in my answer. How can a genitive be used in the same way as an accusative? 'This is his coat.' 'This is him coat'. It doesn't work. So you can say 'Him constantly smoking upset me' (accusative/adverb/verb) but this would have to be 'His constant smoking upset me' (genitive/adjective/gerund noun). – Mynamite Oct 31 '14 at 16:08
  • @Mynamite But actual usage doesn't back up your claim there, it seems to me. The theory has to fit the actual usage, not the other way around ... :) – Araucaria - Him Nov 08 '14 at 12:27
  • @Araucaria Ah well, depends whose actual usage you're talking about! That is how I would say it, and I think the grammar backs it up, but I'm very happy to accept that language changes and with several million speakers worldwide it might be done differently elsewhere. The whole point of language is communication: if someone says something 'wrong' but is still understood, that's fine by me. But I think differentiating between 'him' and 'his' does prevent some confusion here. :) – Mynamite Nov 08 '14 at 12:39
  • @Mynamite I don't think its an international thing particularly. Here's a page from Michael Meacher's website. Title there gives a clear example MM – Araucaria - Him Nov 08 '14 at 12:44
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Using old-school terminology I'd say that not every verb ending with -ing is a gerund.

  1. His constant smoking upset me. 'smoking' is a deverbal noun
  2. His constantly smoking upset me. 'smoking' is a gerund
  3. Him smoking cigars upset me. 'smoking' is present participl.

Thus we have gerund in one case only.

shuhshuh
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  • You're right that deverbal nouns exist, like in several readings of the same book, but how do you explain using him as the sentence subject if the third one is a participle? You cannot. Therefore him is merely the subject of the non finite clause, not of the finite one as that is forbidden. There is no participle the way there arguable is when you've got a smoldering campfire smoking after a wind kicks it up. – tchrist Mar 16 '19 at 19:04