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I have a question regarding the correct usage of verbs as nouns ending in -ing (I understand that these are referred to as gerunds). Under what circumstance may a gerund be used in place of the verb it is derived from? In particular, is it acceptable for a gerund to be the subject of a sentence? Consider these examples:

1) Analyzing data is difficult.

2) The analysis of data is difficult.

Which of the above examples are correct? If both are correct, is one example preferred over the other?

Joel
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    Both are correct. Preference for one over the other would be on the basis of style and/or context. – phoog Apr 30 '15 at 18:59

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A verb plus -ing form used in a nominalized sentence is a gerund. It's a verb. A nominalized sentence is a sentence given a form that lets it occupy the position of a NP, e.g. subject, direct object, object of a preposition. So, yes, subject position is okay.

A gerund is not a noun. It's a verb which, like other verbs, can take a direct object (provided the verb is transitive), can be modified by an adverb (but not an adjective), does not take an article.

Confusingly, there are also nominalized sentences with nouns that have been derived from verbs. The term for these is derived nominal. Your example "the analysis of data" is a derived nominal. "Analysis" here is a noun, not a verb. Notice that like other common nouns, and unlike verbs, it does take an article, but does not take a direct object (the logical object "data" has to be expressed as a prepositional phrase, because it can't be made a direct object).

Even more confusingly, there are -ing nouns derived from verbs that occur in nominalizations. For your examples, we could also get "The analyzing of data is difficult." Here, like "analysis", "analyzing" is a noun.

There are sometimes meaning differences between nominalizations with -ing, which can refer to facts, and nominalizations with derived nominals, which can refer to actions or the manner of some event or process.

Ronald Langacker gives an able and concise summary of the classical analysis of the two kinds of nominalizations here. McCawley adds some interesting analytic details (as usual) in The Syntactic Phenomena of English.

Greg Lee
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  • Thank you for this thorough answer. Regarding the examples given, is (1) grammatically correct? – Joel Apr 30 '15 at 20:08
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    Both your examples are grammatical and sound fine to me. I don't know about "correct". As @phoog remarked in a comment, there might be stylistic reasons to prefer one over the other. (The 3rd version, which I gave, "The analyzing of data is difficult", sounds awkward, to me.) – Greg Lee Apr 30 '15 at 20:13
  • Yeah, generally a derived event noun like analyzing would not be likely if there were already a differently derived event noun from the same root like analysis. By the way, there are a number of constructions involving -ing forms of verbs; only one of them is a gerund. http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/gerund.html – John Lawler Apr 30 '15 at 22:04
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    A 'gerund' is a verb rather than a noun according to the opinions of some. Aarts looks at the alternative approaches (dual membership and gradience). – Edwin Ashworth Apr 30 '15 at 22:32
  • @EdwinAshworth, yes, a gerund is a verb, according to my opinion also. That's what I said in my answer. – Greg Lee Apr 30 '15 at 22:34
  • Let me repeat. A 'gerund' is a verb rather than a noun according to the opinions of some. I'm saying that Aarts describes schools treating the ing-form in 'Analyzing data is difficult.' as (a) something neither a noun nor a verb but somewhere in between; (b) more x than y, so we'll call it an x; (c) both a noun and a verb at the same time [Aarts & McMahon, English Word Classes and Phrases; 2.3 Word Class Boundaries and Gradience] [where linguists in the various camps are mentioned]. You give one opinion and make it sound like a done deal. – Edwin Ashworth May 01 '15 at 07:27
  • @EdwinAshworth, it is a done deal, wanting evidence to the contrary. I gave evidence. I don't see why I should be concerned because there is opinion to the contrary. People have all sorts of strange ideas. Why should anyone care what these other "schools" think? Do they have evidence? If not, they don't count. If there is evidence for such other views, it seems to me it's up to you to tell us what it is, or at least give a reference to where we can find it. – Greg Lee May 01 '15 at 08:09
  • Again? (This has all been covered before.) And what's wrong with the Aarts / McMahon reference, and their references to the different schools? – Edwin Ashworth May 01 '15 at 16:28
  • Yes, I've covered it in previous answers. I haven't read your Aarts / McMahon reference. Should I? If you're recommending it, it's up to you to tell us why. What's the evidence? We're not back in the middle ages, are we?, when such discussions involved only appeals to various authorities. – Greg Lee May 01 '15 at 16:37
  • Let's be friends, guys :) – Joel May 01 '15 at 19:33