ГРАММАТИКА ЭКЗАМЕН / 8 THE GERUND FORMS AND FUNCTIONS

THE GERUND

FORMS OF THE GERUND

Form	Active	Passive
Indefinite	watching	being watched
Perfect	having watched	having been watched

The Indefinite forms of the Gerund denote simultaneous action and Perfect forms prior action to that of the predicate verb:

He likes watching television.

She dislikes being criticized.

He admitted having told lies.

He denied having been informed about the time of the meeting.

NOTE: 1. After the verbs excuse, forgive, remember, thank etc. and after the prepositions on (upon), after, without the Gerund Indefinite is used to denote a prior action:

Excuse my interrupting you.

After confessing to her he was very much relieved.

2. After the verbs want, need, deserve, require and an adjective worth the Gerund is used in the active form but has a passive meaning.

The room needs painting.

THE FUNCTIONS OF THE GERUND

The Gerund is used as:

1) a Subject: Advertising is very helpful.

2) Part of a Compound Predicate:

All he wanted was leaving the place at once.

The baby started crying.

3) an Object: Would you mind my opening the window?

4) an Attribute: He has no plans of expanding the company.

5) Adverbial modifiers of:

a) manner: He began the lecture by explaining the general look at the problem.

b) time: After merging with another company they became the monopolists.

c) purpose: These devices are used for cleaning.