Re: off-topic: gerund vs. participle

[felina <felina@TIN.IT>]

My Italian-teaching relative, my colleagues, and my big fat dictionary all
contend that

1) A GERUND is an infinitive tense of a verb that expresses, in an invariant
form, the idea intended by the verb itself   in terms of the circumstance
complement (i.e. going, eating, playing...).

2) A PRESENT PARTICIPLE (not to be confused with a PAST PARTICIPLE) is an
infinitive tense of a verb that expresses, in an invariant form, the idea
intended by the verb itself   in terms of an adjective attached to a noun
(i.e. a burning candle, a fattening meal)

3) of course all this is a lot easier in italian where the two tenses have
rather different endings, ( and different conjugation both for their past
and present tenses) and it is really hard to be torn by doubts even for
nonexperts.

Have fun
Felina


----- Original Message -----
From: John Denker <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 1999 12:26 AM
Subject: off-topic: gerund vs. participle


> At 04:49 PM 10/27/99 -0400, Chuck Britton wrote:
> >         I believe that my English teaching relatives and colleagues
> > would have us call that word 'working' a GERUND rather than a
> > participle.
>
> My English-teaching relative, my colleagues, and my big fat dictionary all
> contend that
>   1) A gerund is always a noun formed from a verb, as "walking" in
>         "Brisk walking is good for you".
>   2) Meanwhile, a participle is formed from a verb and is either:
>     2a) An adjective, as "burning" in
>          "We each held a burning candle."   -- or --
>     2b) A complement to certain verbs, as "working" in
>         "... electrical forces against which we are working."
>
> In English, the gerund and the participle are identical in form, and
differ
> only in function.  In other languages, they differ in form as well, which
> is why experts continue to recognize the difference.
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> copyright (C) 1999 John S. Denker             jsd@monmouth.com