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In traditional grammars, gerunds are distinguished from other uses of a verb's -ing form: the present participle (which is a non-finite verb form like the gerund, but is adjectival or adverbial in function), and the pure verbal noun or deverbal noun.
This is followed by the simple past tense , and then the past participle. If there are irregular present tense forms (see below), these are given in parentheses after the infinitive. (The present participle and gerund forms of verbs, ending in -ing, are always regular. In English, these are used as verbs, adjectives, and nouns.)
A gerund is a verb form that appears in positions that are usually reserved for nouns. In English, a gerund has the same form as a progressive active participle and so ends in -ing. Gerunds typically appear as subject or object noun phrases or even as the object of a preposition:
Gerunds and present participles are two types of non-finite verb; the difference is that gerunds are used to produce noun phrases, and participles to produce adjectival or adverbial phrases. This is illustrated in the following examples: I like eating cakes.
There is a perfect infinitive (to) have written and a perfect progressive infinitive (to) have been writing, and corresponding present participle/gerund forms having written and having been writing. A perfect subjunctive (have written) is also sometimes used. Future and conditional perfect forms are given below.
The first example involves a present participle and the two latter examples involves a past participle. All present participles end with an -ande suffix. In Norwegian, the present participle may be used to form adjectives or adverbs denoting the possibility or convenience of performing the action prescribed by the verb.
The form without to is called the bare infinitive; the form introduced by to is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive. The other non-finite verb forms in English are the gerund or present participle (the -ing form), and the past participle – these are not considered infinitives.
This is the case with certain strong verbs, where historical sound changes have led to a leveling of the vowel modifications: for example, let has both past tense and past participle identical to the infinitive, while come has the past participle identical (but a different past tense, came).