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David Hatton Posted 10 years ago
Grammar

Participle or gerund?

In 'Striding down the pitch, waving his flag, the linesman declared that the ball was out' are 'striding' and 'waving' also participles (and therefore verbs) or does either (as I've been told but can't accept) act adverbially or are they gerunds? I confess to ignorance of the gerund other than it being a noun using the form of a participle, therefore struggle to spot the subtler ones. To me, both of these examples are participles. Am I right?
  

Top answer

They are participle. David Hatton struggle to spot the subtler ones Console your self with the thought that such leading grammarians as Quirk et al (1985), Huddleston and Pullum (2002) and Aarts (2011) do not see any point in differentiating between participles and gerunds.

— Fivejedjon

  • They are participle.
  • David Hatton struggle to spot the subtler ones Console your self with the thought that such leading grammarians as Quirk et al (1985), Huddleston and Pullum (2002) and Aarts (2011) do not see any point in differentiating between participles and gerunds.
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4 Answers
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They are participle.
David Hattonstruggle to spot the subtler ones
Console your self with the thought that such leading grammarians as Quirk et al (1985), Huddleston and Pullum (2002) and Aarts (2011) do not see any point in differentiating between participles and gerunds.
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...Then should we be referring to participles as verbs, parts of verbs or not verbs at all?
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The ing- form of the verb, however you label it, is one of the inflected forms of the verb.
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Thank you; I learned of participles years ago when I had to explain to children why there were two verbs in a sentence (one being a participle) yet an exam question asked them to find 'the verb in the sentence'. It was only the Latin teacher who could explain to me about participles and even now I would contest that the question was unfair as although only one acted as a main verb, the participle
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