Speech part of Cleaning
a sleeping baby / a sleeping bag
I know that sleeping in ‘a sleeping baby’ is a present participle and sleeping in ‘a sleeping bag’ is a gerund.
And then, how about cleaning people?
Is it a present participle or a gerund?
We need cleaning people.
Thank you so much as usual in advance.
Top answer
Hans51 how about cleaning people? 'cleaning' is both a participle and a gerund there. It's ambiguous.
- Hans51 how about cleaning people?
- 'cleaning' is both a participle and a gerund there.
- It's ambiguous.
- I imagine that most of the time in the context you used ( We need cleaning people ) the meaning is more like the meaning of a gerund ( We need people for (the purpose of) doing some cleaning ), and not so much like the participle ( We need people who are cleaning (things) ).
- So if I had to pick one, I'd say 'gerund'.
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Hans51how about cleaning people?
'cleaning' is both a participle and a gerund there. It's ambiguous.
I imagine that most of the time in the context you used (We need cleaning people) the meaning is more like the meaning of a gerund (We need people for (the purpose of) doing some cleaning), and not so much like the participle (We need
0Hans51And then, how about cleaning people?
I think of such things as two-word nouns. It's like "coffee cup" or "time bomb" or "street sweeper". The only reason they haven't become single words is that they look funny in print that way: coffeecup, timebomb, streetsweeper. Look at "teacup" and "H-bomb". Your "cleaning people" is a variation on "cleaning lady"
0Hans51a sleeping baby / a sleeping bag
I know that sleeping in ‘a sleeping baby’ is a present participle and sleeping in ‘a sleeping bag’ is a gerund.
And then, how about cleaning people? Is it a present participle or a gerund? We need cleaning people.
Yes, in "a sleeping baby", "sleeping" is a present participle verb. And so is "cle
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