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I read from TheFreeDictionary http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Gerunds.htm the examples "Studying too hastily will result in a poor grade." and "Working from home allows me to spend more time with my family." with the specification

... in this case, it is the gerund phrase that is functioning as a noun, so the gerund itself can still be modified by an adverb in the same way as a normal verb.

However, I read from some posts regarding gerunds in the current site English Language & Usage that gerunds can also be modified by adjectives.

Then, I found from the above webpage the further example "She started going crazy from so much waiting." I wonder whether "so much" here works as an adjective or adverb modifying the gerund waiting. I feel it's like both ways are OK.

In addition, I also looked up "persistent" https://www.thefreedictionary.com/persistent, finding an example which uses the adjective persistent to modifying the gerund questioning: "your persistent questioning". And then, I looked up "continual" https://www.thefreedictionary.com/continual, finding a further example of this kind: "a process that requires continual monitoring", wherein the adjective continual modifies the gerund monitoring.

Nevertheless, I have never seen an example of "gerund + object" with modifiers modifying the gerund therein, so I wonder which of adjectives and adverbs should be used to modify the gerund therein. For example, is it OK to say "With my persistent broadening the horizon of my knowledge of cosmology, my interest in it is ever growing."? Or should I say "With my persistently broadening the horizon of my knowledge of cosmology, my interest in it is ever growing."?

After some studying about gerunds, I feel real gerunds should be modified by adverbs and those terms with the form v.-ing modified by adjectives should be viewed as nouns rather than gerunds.

tchrist
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Captain Bohemian
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    "Studying" and "working" are verbs, not nouns, and hence should be modified by adverbs. – BillJ Mar 17 '18 at 13:56
  • The analysis of ing-forms has not been decreed finally resolved, to my knowledge (a point Aarts spells out, though he may have changed his opinion in the last few years). Quirk et al give a gradience approach rather than deciding which constituency tests they will use to confer unequivocal labels. [Language and Context _ H L-Tarry] – Edwin Ashworth Mar 17 '18 at 14:13
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    @EdwinAshworth, The definitive treatment of English -ing nominals is Robert B. Lees' 1960 The grammar of English nominalizations. – Greg Lee Mar 17 '18 at 21:22
  • @BillJ -- a gerund can be a noun. ie "Studying is too hard for me." or "Working with iron is a delicate process." – ravery Mar 18 '18 at 00:11
  • @captianBohemian -- in most of the examples you gave, the gerund is being used as a noun (your persistent questioning) and thus is modified by an adjective. However, if used in a verb phrase (broadening the horizon), it is modified using an adverb. – ravery Mar 18 '18 at 00:16
  • @ravery You’re just using “gerund” to mean an -ing word. That isn’t very useful. Something is either a noun or a verb, or an adjective; it cannot be more than one at the same time. A non-finite verb clause like an infinitive clause or an -ing clause can be used as a finite clause’s subject; its head is still a verb not a noun when that happens. Once your -ing word stops being a verb and becomes only a noun, it is no longer a “gerund”: it’s a deverbal noun. A “gerund” is only ever a verb, or else we have a meaningless inflectional-only category. – tchrist Mar 18 '18 at 00:40
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    @ravery Arrogations are out of place on ELU. The grammatical 'Brown's deftly painting his daughter is a joy to watch' means that if people aren't going to accept a gradience model they have to think up ways to prioritise POS-tagging devices. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 18 '18 at 00:47
  • @ravery I'm aware of that. But they are verbs in the OP's examples, and that's what I was commenting on. In your example "working with iron" the preferred interpretation of "working" is a verb. The same applies to your "studying" example. – BillJ Mar 18 '18 at 08:12

2 Answers2

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Form versus Function

This is a perennial confusion, one deriving in part from different sources using the word “gerund” in conflicting and contradictory ways, some of which are based in older analyses that no longer hold, others which are simply too fuzzy for practical application. You seem to be using “gerund” to mean any old ‑ing word at all, no matter what its part of speech is. That’s going to lead to confusion.

A word like studying, waiting, broadening, questioning, or giving is a regular non-finite verbal inflection, but that only tells you the word’s form not its function. It doesn’t tell you what it’s being used for because without the grammar of a surrounding phrase and how that word fits into that phrase grammatically, it in fact isn’t being used for anything at all and so has no part of speech.

Yet.

It may surprise you to learn that “gerund” isn’t so useful a term as you might think, and you don’t even need it. You’ll find that the analysis becomes far easier, both in this case and in more complex ones, if you discard the term entirely and stick strictly to parts of speech: verb, noun, adjective, adverb. If you want to discuss its broader syntactic role in the grammar as a constituent, then we use other terms for those constituents than parts of speech.

Instead, here is a simple guideline for classifying VERB-ing words into one of noun, verb, or adjective:

  1. When the ‑ing word is a VERB, it can be modified by adverbs (that aren’t actually intensifiers instead like very), but not by adjectives. It can also take objects if it’s a transitive verb:

    • “Quickly giving her the day off was the best solution.”
    • “I was carefully giving her the delicate soufflé when her phone rang.”
    • “These stickers are for quickly giving your students’ papers an attractive decoration.”

  2. When the ‑ing word is a NOUN, it can be modified by adjectives and quantifiers, but not by adverbs or intensifiers. It can often be inflected into the plural as well:

    • “Voluntary givings at churches during Christmastime are key to our global relief effort.”
    • “Any voluntary giving should be deducted from your taxes.”
    • “Here we call our donations bins our ‘giving boxes’, so please place your gifts in any of the three colorfully decorated giving boxes near the entrance.”

  3. When the ‑ing word is an ADJECTIVE, it can be modified not only by adverbs (and not by other adjectives), but also by very and related words of its class (intensifiers):

    • “She was an endlessly giving person, even after the crooks took advantage of her.”
    • “She was a very giving person to her dying day, and beyond.”

The Latin term “gerund” isn’t a very good one for English for many reasons I won’t be repeating here. The important thing to remember is that “gerund” isn’t somehow its own part of speech: an ‑ing word derived from a verb is still always going to be one of either a verb or a noun or an adjective. Sometimes these latter two are referred to as verbal or deverbal nouns or adjectives, or as participial adjectives, to show that they’ve stopped being verbs.

The only ‑ing words that are doing a “gerundial” job are those which are still verbs, not deverbal nouns, and which happen to be acting as a substantive, meaning places in the grammar where a noun phrase is required — typically when a subject or object is called for.

SEE ALSO

tchrist
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  • Is it better, then, to drop the idea of 'gerund' in favour of an acceptance that -ing words demonstrate a spectrum of use between verb and noun ? – Nigel J Mar 17 '18 at 16:10
  • @NigelJ, No, it's worse. *-ing" words are not between verb and noun -- that is not possible. They be either nouns or verbs, never both. – Greg Lee Mar 17 '18 at 18:48
  • In 2, I think it would be better not to say that a determiner "modifies" a noun. – Greg Lee Mar 17 '18 at 20:48
  • @GregLee You're probably right. I'm of course just trying to say it takes the regular prenominal elements of a typical NP just like any other noun. – tchrist Mar 17 '18 at 20:59
  • @NigelJ Perhaps. I have yet to see a use for awarding a special term to some non-finite verb phrase (either an -ing one or an infinitive one) when it is used substantively, or when used as a modifier phrase — particularly when assigning that name has created so much confusion. Its name doesn't change what modifiers or arguments the verb takes in any way. There seems to be a confusion between inflectional morphology, the parts of speech of individual words, and the grammatical roles played by larger syntactic constituents potentially comprising many words each. – tchrist Mar 18 '18 at 02:36
  • It takes me much effort to clarify myself what your answer intends to convey. I think you wrong me by saying I seem to be using “gerund” to mean any old ‑ing word at all no matter what its part of speech is. I don't. Before posting, I have been aware only those v.-ing terms which still preserve the verbal function are gerunds, understanding v.-ing's preceded by articles or quantifiers and inflected to plurals aren't gerunds, nor are v.-ing's functioning as adjectives. Whence the final paragraph of my post. I just have difficulties telling whether untouched v.-ing's work as nouns or gerunds. – Captain Bohemian Mar 19 '18 at 19:32
  • Do you introduce any adverb to modify 'giving', which functions as a verb, into your example “This stickers are for giving your students’ papers an attractive decoration.”? I can't find it. – Captain Bohemian Mar 19 '18 at 19:56
  • What are the differences between verbal nouns and deverbal nouns? – Captain Bohemian Mar 19 '18 at 20:23
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    @CaptainBohemian Oh it looks like I the adverb out. Fixing. I'm sorry that you feel wronged. Some people calling things gerunds no matter whether they're nouns or verbs. A verbal noun is the old term for an -ing verb heading a gerund clause used substantively. It's a wobbly analysis that can't look at multiword constituents. A deverbal noun is an ex-verb, so just a noun now. I'd rather not call anything at all a gerund given how much confusion and even controversy the term brings. It's not a part of speech. – tchrist Mar 19 '18 at 21:43
  • @tchrist I interpret part of what you want to convey as follows: "Though both a verbal noun and a deverbal noun take the v.-ing form, only a verbal noun should be referred to as a gerund because only a verbal noun still carries the meaning of the verb from which it is derived. Nevertheless, some people refer to both as gerunds. If that's the case, 'givings' in your example 'Voluntary givings at churches during Christmas time ...' is a gerund. How confusing and controversial it is! Therefore you'd rather avoid using a gerund to refer to either a verbal noun or a deverbal noun." Am I right? – Captain Bohemian Mar 20 '18 at 13:58
  • @CaptainBohemian No, givings is not a verb. It's a noun. You may call it a deverbal noun if you wish to convey its origin. But it doesn't do verb things any longer. That's the key point. It isn't about the meaning. It's whether something does verb things or noun things or adjective things. – tchrist Mar 20 '18 at 19:03
  • @tchrist In addition, what do you denote by 'old' in both "A verbal noun is the old term for an -ing verb heading a gerund clause used substantively." and "You seem to be using “gerund” to mean any old ‑ing word at all, ..."? If there are old v.-ing terms, then what are the new ones? – Captain Bohemian Mar 20 '18 at 19:35
  • @CaptainBohemian The “old” part is that the term “verbal noun” was used back when the only analysis was part-of-speech assignments to individual words rather than discussing syntactic roles of larger multiword syntactic constituents. This leads to paradoxes that cannot be resolved outside of a constituency parse, the very thing that they do not attempt. In ”Quitting your job early helps you realize your dreams”, they tried to call quitting a “verbal noun” because the verb phrase it’s heading is the sentence subject. The problem is that quitting is not a noun here; it’s only a verb. – tchrist Mar 29 '18 at 02:16
  • @tchrist So your "old" refers to "traditional grammar" mentioned in Greg Li's answer? If that's the case, I still don't quite know what that is though Greg Li has slightly explained "traditional grammar". I am not versed with linguistics. Truthfully speaking, when I read your post and others', I encountered a lot of linguistic terms unfamiliar to me. I didn't grasp them better until reading some of other posts and looking up some linguistic terms. I don't know how traditional grammar and new grammar parse sentences. I usually learn how to write gramatically by observing how others write. – Captain Bohemian Mar 31 '18 at 04:05
  • 'a simple guideline for classifying VERB-ing words into one of noun, verb, or adjective' ... As you point out elsewhere, a small number of participle preposition usages also occur, including a few ing-forms, Every detail regarding the episode was faithfully recorded.. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 23 '23 at 11:28
  • 'Brown's painting is a sight to behold' (not the deverbal noun) seems to suddenly switch to verb in 'Brown's painting his daughter is a sight to behold' while both are sights. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 20 '24 at 19:18
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To supplement the excellent answer from tchrist, I'll answer your question:

For example, is it OK to say "With my persistent broadening the horizon of my knowledge of cosmology, my interest in it is ever growing."?

No, it is not okay. "broadening" is apparently a noun here, since it is modified by the adjective "persistent" (as you recognize). But "the horizon of my knowledge of cosmology" is a NP (noun phrase) which is the direct object of "broadening". In English, nouns cannot have direct objects. This is a contradiction, because "broadening" can either be a noun or a verb, but it can't be both simultaneously.

Consequently, there are two ways of amending your example sentence: (1) change it so that "broadening" is unambiguously a noun, or (2) change it so that "broadening" is unambiguously a verb. In your discussion, you suggest (2), where the adjective "persistent" has been changed to an adverb, "persistently". Then "broadening" can be a verb modified by an adverb and taking a direct object.

Alternatively, (1), an "of" can be inserted to convert the NP "the horizon of my knowledge of cosmology" into the PP (prepositional phrase) "of the horizon of my knowledge of cosmology":

With my persistent broadening of the horizon of my knowledge of cosmology, my interest in it is ever growing.

This works, because although English nouns cannot have direct objects, they can take PP complements.

This sort of example cannot be correctly understood in traditional grammar, or in its modern offshoot dependency grammar, because it requires analysis in terms of multi-word phrases, not just a classification of words.

Footnote: By "traditional grammar" above, I mean a simple parts-of-speech analysis of the sort invented by the ancient Greeks. However, it would not cause any difficulty for the great traditional grammarians of the 20th century Otto Jespersen or Hendrick Poutsma.

Greg Lee
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  • Oh hm, is the frequent confusion from folks who aren't used to use constituency grammars trying to jam entire phrases into a single part of speech? They see a VP standing in for an NP as the subject of the clause and wind up calling the verb a noun? – tchrist Mar 17 '18 at 21:04
  • @tchrist, Yes, or not being able to tell a NP from a N. – Greg Lee Mar 17 '18 at 21:08
  • Wouldn't option (2) also require changing the first "my" to "me"? At least to my ear, the OP's "With my persistently broadening..." sounds wrong, since it's trying to apply a possessive pronoun to a verbal phrase. – Ilmari Karonen Mar 17 '18 at 21:45
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    @IlmariKaronen, It may well be wrong to your ear. English seems to fluctuate between using accusative and possessive forms for the subject of nominalized sentences. "He approved of me/my eating oysters." – Greg Lee Mar 17 '18 at 22:26
  • Your example "With my persistent broadening the horizon ...", is best described as a 'hybrid' construction since the dependents are of mixed types. The pre-head dependent is characteristic of NP structure, the post head one characteristic of VP structure. As a result, it is of marginal acceptability, and resists elegant description. – BillJ Mar 18 '18 at 07:53
  • @BillJ, Perhaps. It's the OP's example. – Greg Lee Mar 18 '18 at 11:46
  • So though a gerund can work as a verb or a noun, which can sometimes be difficult to tell, or can work as either way (but not both ways simultaneously) when considering choosing adverbs or adjectives to modify, whenever a gerund has objects, it must work as a verb and thus should be modified by adverbs? – Captain Bohemian Mar 20 '18 at 15:02
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    @CaptainBohemian, Well, a more straightforward way of putting it is: There is no such thing as a "gerund". The thing sometimes called a "gerund" is a verb which is the head of a noun phrase. – Greg Lee Mar 20 '18 at 15:24
  • @GregLee OK, now I notice you refrain from using the term gerund altogether in your answer and instead just use noun and verb to refer to the v.-ing term broadening. But even we avoid using the term gerund, we still have to determine whether a v.-ing term works as a noun or verb when we wish to modify it, don't we? Whence comes my question. – Captain Bohemian Mar 20 '18 at 17:21
  • @CaptainBohemian, Provided you're grammatically consistent, it's your stylistic choice. – Greg Lee Mar 20 '18 at 21:04