THE GERUND (-ing form)

Although all "gerunds" end in -ing, they are not necessarily very easy to recognize, since they can be easily confused with present participles, which also end in -ing. Gerunds are derived from verbs and serve as nouns, whereas present participles serve as the continuous form of verbs and as shortened forms for relative clauses (reduced relative clauses).

Noun phrase paraphrases

A gerund phrase, one that starts with a gerund, can often be paraphrased with either a noun compound or a French-based noun phrase consisting of the form "the ....tion of", which contains a definite article, the latinate verbal noun, and "of" . The table below shows examples of the three types of noun phrases, increasing in formality as one progresses to the bottom.