Gerunds: Forms and Uses - English Grammar with Jennifer

Hi everyone. I'm Jennifer from English with  Jennifer. I've made some embarrassing mistakes  

in the past. Have you? Let me tell you about one.  I was at a wedding. I knew the bride, but not the  

groom. I had only seen him from a distance. Well,  I was walking along a path after the ceremony,  

and a man in a tuxedo was about to pass me. I was  fairly certain it was the groom, so I thought I  

should say something. I said, "Congratulations!"  He said, "Thanks, but I'm not the groom." I was  

like, "Oops!" Putting names with faces isn't my  best skill, at least not outside the classroom.  

Sometimes we mistake one person for another.  It happens. I know I'm not the first to do it.  

This is not all that different from mistaking  one piece of grammar for another. Gerunds and  

present participles are both words that end in  -ing. We form them from verbs: learn - learning,  

love - loving, run - running. So,  not all words that end in -ing  

are gerunds, but gerunds behave like nouns.  Take a look at some parts from my story again  

and tell me if the highlighted words are gerunds.  I've made some embarrassing mistakes in the past.

This isn't a gerund. This is a present  participle functioning as an adjective.  

Some call it a participial adjective. What  kind of mistakes? Embarrassing mistakes.

-ing adjectives have an active meaning.  These mistakes cause embarrassment.

I was walking along a path after the ceremony.

This isn't a gerund. This is a present participle,  and it's part of a verb in the past progressive.  

It's an action in progress  at a past point in time.

Putting names with faces isn't my best skill.

"Putting" is a gerund. I used  a gerund phrase as the subject  

of my sentence. Putting names  with faces isn't my best skill.

How else can we use gerunds? What else might we  mistake for a gerund? Do gerunds change forms?  

Let's find answers to these questions.

We saw how a gerund or a  gerund phrase can function  

as the subject. Take a look at these  sentences. How are the gerunds being used?

Do you enjoy meeting new people?  Are you good at remembering names?

Look back at number one. Enjoy  what? Enjoy meeting new people.  

The gerund phrase is the object of  the verb. It's the direct object.

And number two. Good at what?  

Good at something. The gerund phrase  is the object of the preposition.

Three. Jennifer's chosen topic,  

forgetting people's names, is one  that other people might relate to.

What was the chosen topic?  Forgetting people's names.  

I'm using the gerund as an appositive. That's a  noun or a noun phrase that redefines the subject.

We often form appositives when we reduce adjective  clauses. My father, a medical doctor, is now  

retired. What was the full adjective clause? My  father, who was a medical doctor, is now retired.

So, a noun or noun phrase or a gerund  or gerund phrase can be an appositive.

Do you remember how I said putting  names with faces isn't my best skill?  

I can flip that around and say, "My best  skill isn't putting names with faces."  

Remember that subject complements  follow linking verbs. We have the  

subject + linking verb (in this case a form  of BE) and then the subject complement.  

It defines the subject. My best skill...  What is it? Isn't putting names with faces.

To summarize, a gerund or gerund phrase  can be a subject, object, complement,  

or appositive. Try completing these sentences  for practice. Share your ideas in the comments.

Do you want to know my honest answer to number  two? In the early morning hours, I enjoy sleeping  

in. I also think that a major cause of stress  is taking on too much and not finding enough  

time for ourselves. Would you agree? I just gave  you an example of a negative gerund. Negative  

gerunds are simply "not" + the gerund. Again,  this gerund or gerund phrase can be a subject,  

object, complement, or appositive. How about  a passive gerund? Do you remember the basic  

difference between active voice and passive  voice? Passive verbs shift the focus to the  

person or thing that receives the action.  The focus shifts away from the performer.  

Watching small children is necessary. Watching  other people is not always appropriate.

For street artists and street performers,  being watched is completely normal.

Do you like being told what to do? Are  you ever afraid of being judged harshly?

These are more examples of passive gerunds.  Passive gerunds use BEING + the past participle.  

Go ahead and practice using passive gerunds.  Write complete answers to my questions.

I can tell you that my son doesn't  like being told what to do,  

especially behind the wheel. He's now 16 going on  17, and although he's doing a great job as a new  

driver, I still get nervous. He doesn't  have his full license yet, so sometimes  

I become a backseat driver. I'm sitting in  the front passenger seat, but I have a habit  

of reminding him to do this and that. I know  it's annoying, but sometimes I can't help it.  

Yes, I'm admitting publicly that my  backseat driving is annoying my teenage son.

Okay. Look at the sentence and  tell me where the gerund is.

Driving. "Driving" is the gerund. "Backseat"  

is acting as a noun modifier. What  kind of driving? Backseat driving.

Whose backseat driving? Mine.

We can use possessive forms before a gerund:  a possessive name or a possessive adjective.  

Since gerunds behave like nouns, we can  use a possessive word before gerund.

Now, something interesting happens in everyday  English. Sometimes we use just a person's name,  

not with an apostrophe -s, just the name  

or an object pronoun in front of a  gerund. And it has the same meaning.

Your telling me what to do at  every turn makes me nervous.  

You telling me what to do at  every turn makes me nervous.

In fact, the object pronoun sounds more  natural to my ears in this example.

What do you think neighbors might complain about?  

Can you finish my sentences  with gerunds or gerund phrases?

Here are my ideas. The new neighbors are  awful. Their partying drives me crazy.  

I really want to tell them that their  dancing on the rooftop has got to stop.

Let's pause for a moment and consider what it  means to use a possessive adjective before a  

gerund. It means we can use other adjectives  -- other modifiers -- before gerunds.  

The neighbor's loud partying is a problem.  

Constant sneezing is typical of spring  allergies. Slow dancing is very romantic.  

The hard part is done. The rest of  the project should be smooth sailing.

We've now seen a simple gerund,  a simple gerund that's negative,  

a passive gerund, and a  so-called possessive gerund.

Having covered simple, passive, and  possessive forms should fill you with  

more confidence. At least, I hope so. You're  ready to look at two final forms: past forms.

Look at my subject.  

I used a very long subject with a perfect gerund.  A perfect gerund is a past form of a gerund.

We use HAVING + a past participle.  

For regular verbs, that's the -ed form. For  irregular verbs. it's the third form of the verb.

We don't often need this form, but  it's useful when we need to clarify  

that one action happened at an earlier past  point in time. I said, "Having covered simple,  

passive, and possessive forms should fill  you with more confidence." In other words,  

we covered other forms of gerunds earlier,  so now you should have more confidence.

Guess what? A perfect gerund can also be passive.  

My backseat driving is bothersome. I guess I  appreciate having been told. I'll do it less.

Besides, he really is getting  better, so he needs less direction.

The passive form of a perfect or past  gerund is HAVING BEEN + the past participle:  

having been told.

Again, he told me earlier, so now I know  what not to do. Can you finish these ideas?

Let me note one pattern. If the time sequence is  clear, we can use the simple gerund. For example,  

my country takes pride in  having put a man on the moon.  

I want to use the perfect gerund here because it  makes a clear reference to the past. But look at  

this example. Having been taught to respect others  at a young age made me the person I am today.  

I feel the time sequence is clear because we have  two time markers: "at a young age" and "today."  

So personally, I think it's fine to say,  "Being taught to respect others at a young age  

made me the person I am today."  

And truthfully, we don't use perfect gerunds  all that much in everyday spoken English.

Do you remember how I talked about mistaken  identity at the beginning of the lesson?  

Well, here's a related challenge. Can  you identify which sentence has a gerund?  

A. The parents appreciated having  been warned about the strong currents,  

so they kept their children in  the shallow water at the beach.

And B. Having been warned  about the strong currents,  

the parents kept their children  in the shallow water at the beach.

Let's consider these examples carefully.

Not all sources and not all teachers will agree  with me, but I feel that sentence A has a gerund.  

Sentence A has a passive gerund in a past  form functioning as the object of the verb:  

appreciated. Appreciated what? In my  mind, sentence B has a participial phrase,  

an adverbial phrase, and it explains a reason.  Why? I see a reduced adverb clause in sentence B.  

Because the parents had been  warned about the strong currents,  

they kept their children in  the shallow water at the beach.

There is debate about gerunds and participles. For  example, following time words like AFTER, BEFORE,  

and WHILE, we can have -ing forms. Some  simply call those words -ing forms.  

However, others like to label them as either  gerunds or participles. I see arguments for both.  

If you consider AFTER and BEFORE prepositions,  then you can see gerunds in these examples:  

After swimming, we had lunch.  Before heading to the beach,  

we put on sunblock. Preposition + object. However,  if you consider AFTER and BEFORE as conjunctions,  

subordinating conjunctions left over  from reduced adverb clauses of time,  

then you likely see them as participles.  The full adverb clauses of time are:  

After we swam, we had lunch. Before we  headed to the beach, we put on sunblock.

Remember that WHILE also helps us form adverb  clauses of time that reduce to adverb phrases,  

so why isn't WHILE listed as a preposition  in the dictionary? It's only a conjunction.  

Why would two conjunctions transform into  prepositions and a third wouldn't? While  

I was relaxing on the beach, I got a nice tan.  While relaxing on the beach, I got a nice tan.

I usually see all these examples with  AFTER, BEFORE, and WHILE + -ing forms  

as adverb phrases reduced from adverb clauses.  

But to be honest, I'd rather find a compromise  than argue. Maybe we can just call them -ing  

forms in those phrases. We can also talk  about -ing forms in these kinds of examples.  

Do you have trouble making small talk? Are you  comfortable talking to people you just met?  

I definitely see those phrases as complements.  The first is an object complement.  

The second is an adjective complement. I'd rather  not argue whether they're gerunds or participles,  

so I'm willing to call them -ing  forms. That's probably less confusing.

If you'd like to learn more about reducing adverb  clauses, you can watch my four-part lesson on this  

topic. I'll put the link in the video description.  Here's a final quiz. Let's test what you learned.

One. Which word is a gerund?

Two. Which gerund is passive?

Three. Which gerund is a past form?

Four. Can you fix the mistake?

Five. Can you fix the mistake?

We'll end here. I hope that looking at lots of  examples was useful. Practicing grammar together  

makes it easier to learn, and I certainly  hope that you feel more confident using  

gerunds now. Please like and share the video. As  always, thanks for watching and happy studies!

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