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Taka Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

Adverbial or gerund

Traveling today can be like watching TV, channel surfing through a bombardment of images too fast to read and too various to sort.

About 'channel surfing' above, is it a gerund which is a restatement of and thus clarifies 'watching TV'? Or is it originally a reduced adverbial clause which modifies 'watch TV' and 'watching TV' is the gerund form of it?
  

Top answer

Hi Taka; First, traveling and watching are gerunds; the subject and a predicate noun respectively. " I favor the second interpretation because, if the phrase "watching TV" is deleted, the sentence still makes sense. But others may have different opinions.

— AlpheccaStars

  • Hi Taka; First, traveling and watching are gerunds; the subject and a predicate noun respectively.
  • " I favor the second interpretation because, if the phrase "watching TV" is deleted, the sentence still makes sense.
  • But others may have different opinions.
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2 Answers
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Hi Taka;

First, traveling and watching are gerunds; the subject and a predicate noun respectively.

"channel surfing..." could be interpreted as an adverbial participial phrase, which describes how the "watching TV" is being done, and modifying "watching."

It could also be interpreted as a gerund phrase, in apposition to "watching TV."

I favor t
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OK, I take other people's silence as silent agreement with AS.

Thanks!
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