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An -ing form is termed gerund when it behaves as a verb within a clause (so that it may be modified by an adverb or have an object); but the resulting clause as a whole (sometimes consisting of only one word, the gerund itself) functions as a noun within the larger sentence. For example, consider the sentence "Eating this cake is easy."
The three examples show distinctions between finite and non-finite verbs and the roles of these distinctions in sentence structure. For example, non-finite verbs can be auxiliary verbs or main verbs and they appear as infinitives, participles, gerunds etc.
Some examples: He is the man to beat. (infinitival clause with zero object; the man is understood as the object) That car wants looking at straight away. (gerund-participial clause with zero preposition complement after at) The building was given a new lease of life. (past-participial clause with zero indirect object)
In the table that follows, the transformations produce grammatical sentences with similar meanings when applied to sentences with gerunds (since the transformations are based on the assumption that the phrase with the -ing word is a noun phrase). When applied to sentences with participles, they produce ungrammatical sentences or sentences with ...
An example of a verbal noun in English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The sacking of the city was an epochal event" (wherein sacking is a gerund form of the verb sack). A verbal noun, as a type of nonfinite verb form, is a term that some grammarians still use when referring to gerunds, gerundives, supines, and nominal forms of infinitives.
This means that a sentence may have alternative meanings depending on whether the -ing form is intended as a gerund or as a deverbal noun: in I like singing either function may be the intended one, but the meaning in each case may be different (I like to sing, if gerund; I like hearing others sing, if deverbal noun).
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More examples can be found at Verb patterns with the gerund. English has a number of ergative verbs: verbs which can be used either intransitively or transitively, where in the intransitive use it is the subject that is receiving the action, and in the transitive use the direct object is receiving the action while the subject is causing it.