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Anonymous Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

Participles vs Gerunds

0 Hello,02br
00I have a "textbook" understanding of participles and gerunds (participles function as adjectives; gerunds as nounds), but I find it difficult to put that knowledge in practice while writing or reviewing sentences. Are there any tricks or tests to determine quickly how an "-ing" word functions? In other words, how do you quickly zero in on what word(s) a particular "-ing" modifies?02br
00Maybe you can walk me through a few examples:02br
02br
00There was never any stopping it.02br
02br
00He has the gall of a shoplifter returning an item for a refund.02br
02br
00He could never see a belt without hitting below it.02br
02br
00Wrestling with words gave me my moments of greatest meaning.02br
02br
00thanks in advance.0-
  

Top answer

02br 02br 00Nouns don't modify anything. They're mostly subjects and objects. 02br 02br 00The last one seems easiest to me.

— Avangi

  • 02br 02br 00Nouns don't modify anything.
  • They're mostly subjects and objects.
  • 02br 02br 00The last one seems easiest to me.
  • " Something 01b 00does02b 00 something 01b 00to02b 00 something.
  • Moments are given to me.
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8 Answers
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0 I'm not the best to do this, not having benefitted from ESL training.02br
02br
00Nouns don't modify anything. They're mostly subjects and objects. If you have a sense for finding the subject of a sentence, or the object of a verb, that can be very useful in picking out the gerunds.02br
02br
00The last one seems easiest to me. We have a transitive acti
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0I have noticed that my way of analyzing English differs to an extent from what is taught in the Anglo-Saxon countries. This is how I see your examples:02br
01i00There was never any stopping it.02i00 01i00Stopping02i00 is a gerund. It is used (without a verb immediately before it) after a form of 01i00to be02i00 (was),
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Hey CB,
You seem to be good at this so do you think you can write a sentence that begins with a participle?
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AnonymousHey CB,
You seem to be good at this so do you think you can write a sentence that begins with a participle?

Thank you for the compliment.
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CB, you said "Participles are very often used to replace all manner of subordinate clauses. "
< This is also very often said in many Taiwanese/ Chinese/Japanese English Grammar Books>
Can you rewrite the origianl sentence "He has the gall of a shoplifter returning an item for a refund."
using "a subordinate clause" instead of "a partiiciple phrase"-- returning as iten for a refu
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AnonymousCan you rewrite the origianl sentence "He has the gall of a shoplifter returning an item for a refund."
using "a subordinate clause" instead of "a partiiciple phrase"-- returning as iten for a refund?

I have already done that. Read my first post.
CB
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Yes, CB, I saw your rewritten sentence "He has the gall of a shoplifter who returns an item for a refund. "
But, in that sentence, "who returns an item for a refund " is not a subordinate clause but a relative clause.
And the relative clause modifies "shoplifter." In your other examples, you did use subordinate clauses, such as in:
"When turning a corner, I saw a lorry hit a car. (= W
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AnonymousYes, CB, I saw your rewritten sentence "He has the gall of a shoplifter who returns an item for a refund. "
But, in that sentence, "who returns an item for a refund " is not a subordinate clause but a
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