Although they look the same, gerunds and present participles are different parts of speech, and need to be treated differently. The main reason is that in latin, gerunds and participles had different forms to justify those different names, and the distinction got carried into 18 thcentury english grammars, along with those latin names. When the present participle plays the role of noun, it is also called a gerund. Whening forms are used like nouns, they are called gerunds. Gerund participles and headcomplement inflection conditions. What is the difference between a gerund and a present. The gerund and the present participle have identical forms. A gerund acts like a noun while a present participle acts like a verb or adjective. A participle, on the other hand, functions like an adjective. However, they function differently because a gerund is a verb serving as a noun. Participles and gerunds exercise english practice learn and.
For example, a gerund is a noun derived from a verb. The french present participle may be an adjective, gerund, noun, or verb. The present participle, on the other hand, also serves as an adjective and describes noun. The french present participle is the verb form that ends in ant. What is the difference between a gerund and a present participle. Gerund or infinitive exercise 1 answers 1 i cant stand waiting in queues. But they do not serve the same purposes in a sentence. The difference between the gerund and the present participle. Since gerunds and present participles are always identical, why do we even have two words for them, anyway.
Note that a present participle can refer to the present, past or future. It is far less common than its english counterpart, which ends in ing. Verbals pdf types of verbals, participles, gerund, infinitive. Present participle examples and definition of present. Infinitive is formed by adding to with a verb that acts as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb in a sentence. Comparing gerunds, participles, and infinitives purdue. Gerund and present participle free download as pdf file. A present participle is the ing form of a verb when it is used as an. A participle is a verbal that is used as an adjective and most often ends in ing or ed.
Participles usually look like either past tense ed or continuous tense ing verbs, but they actually function as adjectives. Since the simple gerund and the present participle have the same form verb ing, sometimes it can be difficult to decide whether an ing form is a gerund or a present participle. Both a gerund and a present participle come from a verb, and both end in ing. Participles infinitives gerunds they look like verbs, but they act like nouns, adjectives, and adverbs participles a participle is a verb form used as an adjective to. State whether the ing forms given in the following sentences are participles or gerunds. Past participles may have one of several past tense endings, including ed, en, and d. The strategy is to present a highly overgeneral description of some phenomenon and then try to show that appropriate principles of universal grammar ug can. Gerund and present participle verb preposition and.
Point out the present participles and gerunds in the following sentences. When a verb is in its infinitive state, it has no subject or object. Types of verbals, participles, gerund, infinitive, using. In the first, the use of a gerund functioning as a noun allows the meaning to be expressed more precisely than in the second.