English Practice Now

Part 1: Using Gerund Phrases

Many students are very familiar with simple gerunds – when we change a verb to a type of noun form by adding ING. They are then placed as subject, objects, or after prepositions in sentences.

• Studying helps improve your success. 
• We strongly encourage working part-time.
• I’m thinking of travelling. 

Gerund phrases can be very helpful tools for nominalizing an idea. Many students are familiar with simple gerunds but are less familiar with the other ways they can be used. 

Gerunds With Subjects and Objects

Gerund phrases can have “subjects” and “objects”. They are not part of a clause as they are still just noun phrases. However, they will carry the same amount of meaning.

• People smoke cigarettes. This increases the mortality rate. 
• Gerund: People smoking cigarettes increases the mortality rate.
• Sarah forgot her ticket. This made us late for the conference.
• Gerund: Sarah forgetting her ticket made us late for the conference.

Perfect Gerunds

Gerunds can also change to a “past” form by using the having + past participle structure. This structure indicates that the action expressed through the gerund was completed before the action in the main clause. However, this can sometimes cause the sentence meaning to be quite complex and harder to interpret:

1. The guests having accidentally taken the towels caused quite a bit of confusion when everyone came back from the beach.

By using “having”, here,  we are showing that the towel theft happened before the action in the main clause, everyone coming back from the beach