What is "ing" called?

Question

I know when you put a "s" at the end of something it is Plural, but what are these structures called? For example:ing, tize, s, ed, er??thanks in advance.

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[nq:1]I know when you put a "s" at the end of something it is Plural, but what are these structures called? For example: ing, tize, s, ed, er ?? thanks in advance.[/nq]
Suffixes?

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[nq:2]Or to create a gerund or participle. Â As an example: Â Take a noun, like "parent", call it a verb "to parent" and then turn is back into a noun "parenting".[/nq]
[nq:1]What I quoted is is* creating a participle. Running *is the present participle of the verb 'to run'. The gerund ... its present participle. Forming verbs from nouns in that way ("to parent") is severely deplored by many people, isn't it?[/nq]
First, no, the ready ability to adapt one part of speech to another ("carpet the room" or "tack down the carpet") is one of the great strengths of English. As with any strength, it can be overworked, notably in creating forms for which a perfectly satisfactory term already exists, but in general is a good and healthy thing.

Second, the sempiternal confusion between the participle and the gerund seems again to have reared its head. A participle is so called because it participates in the qualities of both verb and adjective. In a predicate-adjective sense, we have "I am writing"; in a noun-adjective sense, we have "I am using a writing desk"; used as a noun, "Writing requires care and attention". A participle can also used as an adverb ("boiling hot", "piercing cold").
The gerund exactly resembles the participle morphologically hence the confusion but functions as a noun. A dancing girl (participle) is a girl who is dancing; a dancing-girl (gerund) is a girl whose job is dancing. Gerundial uses are often hyphenated, most especially when the unhyphenated version could reasonably be confused with a participial use, though often also when not: no one would think that a dining car is a unit of a train which unit is engaged in eating something; but there might be some convoluted context in which an "ironing board" (as opposed to an "ironing-board") could be thought to be some sort of board that engaged in ironing.

Cordially,
Eric Walker, Owlcroft House
http://owlcroft.com/english/

What is "ing" called?

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