Verb or a noun ?

Question

Higood day everyone"They saw the sun rising over the horizon."Is the word rising a verb or a gerund(noun) ?if it is a verb, is it transitive or not? Thank you very much in advance.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

I read it as a present participle. The participial phrase "rising over the horizon" is adjectival, modifying "sun," or arguably adverbial, modifying "saw."

In my opinion, it tells what the sun was doing when they saw it, not "how" they saw/perceived the sun.

It's a "verbal," rather than a finite verb.

I"d say a gerund would be, "They saw the rising of the sun over the horizon."

Anonymous · Answer

Thank for your time

What about this one :

We saw the soldiers fighting furiously.

is fighting a gerund ?

if so, can I use an adverb like furiously with a gerund (noun)

Anonymous · Answer

OK what do you think of:

The teacher kept on talking.

is talking a verb or a gerund?

and is it possible to change this sentence to passive? Why?

Anonymous · Answer

anyone ?

BillJ · Answer

AnonymousWhat about this one :We saw the soldiers fighting furiously.is fighting a gerund ?if so, can I use an adverb like furiously with a gerund (noun)

This is a similar kind of construction to the one in your first post. "Fighting" is a present participle verb-form heading the participial clause "fighting furiously". There is nothing noun-like about the function of "fighting furiously" in your example which is why "fighting" is not a gerund.

Now consider these two examples:

"I like [eating chocolate candy]". [gerund clause]
"I like [chocolate candy]". [noun]

In both examples, the bracketed parts function as complement to the verb "like". In the first, the bracketed part is a clause, with the verb "eating" as its head. In the second example, the bracketed part is a noun phrase with the noun "candy" as head. The similarity between the verb-form "eating" and the noun "candy" is simply this: they both head expressions with the same function.

Finally, do be aware that though noun-like in function, gerunds are usually verbs, as in the "eating chocolate candy' example above. Occasionally, you come across one that is a noun, such as in "I witnessed the killing of the birds", where "killing" is a noun. We call them 'gerundial nouns'.

Does that help?

BillJ

BillJ · Answer

AnonymousThe teacher kept on talking.is talking a verb or a gerund?and is it possible to change this sentence to passive? Why?

For the first part of your question: why don't you have a bash yourself. I'll give you a clue: consider carefully the role of the verb/preposition combination "kept on". It's key to the answer.

Regarding the second part, passives typically rely on their active equivalents having a transitive verb, and a direct object which becomes the subject of the passive version. But "kept" in your example is intransitive - there's no object - so a passive version is not possible.

BillJ

Verb or a noun ?

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