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Is it considered grammatical to refer to a gerund in the subject position with the pronoun "it"?
Example:

Visiting a dentist regularly is recommended as it can contribute to overall health.

yoozer8
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Ilana
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2 Answers2

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Sure. Using the pronoun it there is perfectly grammatical.

RegDwigнt
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Gerunds are words derived from verbs that are used as nouns; they can be used as subject of a sentence, and (as with every noun) you can replace them with pronouns.

apaderno
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    Gerunds aren't used as nouns though. Gerunds can take subjects and objects. In this example, the gerund visiting has the object the dentist. If I replace the gerund with a noun, the result is ungrammatical: Visitation a dentist regularly is recommended. – morphail Oct 15 '11 at 14:27
  • @morphail Actually, I would not use visitation because it means " an official or formal visit." The fact gerunds function as nouns doesn't mean you can always replace them with another noun. – apaderno Oct 15 '11 at 16:30
  • @kiamlaluno My point is that a nouns and gerunds occupy certain syntactic slots. You can't put a noun in the slot that a gerund occupies. If gerunds were nouns, then I should be able to replace them with other nouns. For instance, dentist is a noun, and I can replace it with another noun: Visiting a house regularly is recommended. The sentence might not make sense, but it is grammatical because the noun is in the right place. But if I replace visiting with a noun, then the result is ungrammatical: Visitation a dentist regularly is recommended. A gerund is not a noun. – morphail Oct 15 '11 at 17:07
  • @morphail I didn't write that a gerund is a noun; I wrote that gerunds function as nouns (or they are used as nouns). The fact you cannot always replace a gerund with a noun is not different from the fact you cannot always replace a noun with another noun. Take as example "the lions roar"; lions is a noun, but you cannot replace it with lambs, and obtain "the lambs roar." – apaderno Oct 15 '11 at 17:12
  • @kiamlaluno Yes you can. The lambs roar is a grammatical sentence. We have a noun, lambs, preceding the verb roar and following the determiner the. But replacing a gerund with a noun often results in an ungrammatical sentence, as in my example. In my example, we have the noun phrase a dentist immediately following the noun visitation. This is not grammatical; we can't stick 2 noun phrases together like this. As far as I can see, there's no difference between saying something functions as a noun or is used as a noun, and saying it is a noun. – morphail Oct 15 '11 at 17:22
  • There is a difference; it's the same difference that there is between saying that something is a weapon, and something can be used as weapon. – apaderno Oct 15 '11 at 17:23
  • let us continue this discussion in chat – morphail Oct 15 '11 at 17:28