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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."
For example, addendum comes from the gerundive of addere ("to add"), and so means something that must be added; referendum comes from the gerundive of referre ("to bring back" [to the people]); agenda comes from the neuter plural of agendus, the gerundive of agere "to do", and so means things that must be done; reverend comes from the gerundive ...
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).
The second example pairs a gerund with a regular noun. Parallelism can be achieved by converting both terms to gerunds or to infinitives. The final phrase of the third example does not include a definite location, such as "across the yard" or "over the fence"; rewriting to add one completes the sentence's parallelism.
In some situations, the distinction between gerund/participle uses and deverbal uses may be lost, particularly when the -ing word appears on its own. For example, in "I like swimming", it is not clear whether swimming is intended as a gerund (as it would be in "I like swimming fast"), or as a pure noun (as in "I like competitive swimming ...
For example, Latin has a number of nominalization suffixes, and some of these suffixes have been borrowed into English, either directly or through Romance languages. Other examples can be seen in German—such as the subtle inflectional differences between deutsch (adj) and Deutsch (noun) across genders, numbers, and cases—although which ...
– Non-finite gerund clause b. They mentioned his cheating on the test. – Gerund with noun status. Each of the gerunds in the a-sentences (stopping, attempting, and cheating) constitutes a non-finite clause. The subject-predicate relationship that has long been taken as the defining trait of clauses is fully present in the a-sentences.
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.