Gerunds

Gerund adalah kata benda yang berasal dari kata kerja ditambah –ing, misalnyaswimming, eating, fishing, shopping, dancing, dan singing. Bila diperhatikan, gerundmempunyai bentuk yang sama dengan present participle, bedanya gerund berfungsi sebagai kata benda, sedangkan present participle sebagai kata sifat yang menerangkan kata benda.

Dalam kalimat, gerund berfungsi sebagai:
a. subjek (subject)
b. pelengkap subjek (subjective complement)
c. objek langsung (direct object)
d. objek preposisi (object of preposition)
e. aposisi (appositive)


Subject
Gerund sebagai subjek pokok kalimat, contoh:
- Swimming is good service.
- Your singing is very beautiful.
- Studying needs time and patience.
- Playing tennis is fun.
- Reading English is easier than speaking it.

Subjective Complement
Gerund sebagai pelengkap subjek dalam kalimat biasanya selalu didahului to be yang terletak di antara subject dan subjective complement, contoh:
- My favorite sport is running.
- My favorite activity is reading.

Direct Object
Gerund sebagai objek langsung dalam kalimat, contoh:
- I enjoy dancing.
- She likes dancing.
- Thank you for your coming.
- I hate arguing.

Object of Preposition
Gerund sebagai objek preposisi yang terletak setelah preposisi. Preposisi yang sering dipakai adalah of, on, no, with, without, at for, after, before, because of, to, like, about, for, by, in.
Contoh:
- He is tired of gambling.
- I am fond of eating bakso.
- He insisted on seeing her.
- I have no objection to hearing your story.
- You will not be clever without studying.
- They are good at telling funny stories.
- In sleeping I met you in the park.

Appositive
Gerund sebagai aposisi atau penegas dalam kalimat, contoh:
- My hobby, fishing, is interesting.
- I do not like quarrelling, a useless job.
My hobby is fishing dan fishing is interesting diletakkan bersebelahan dalam sebuah kalimat sebagai appositive (fishing adalah aposisi dari my hobby), begitu juga contoh kalimat dibawahnya.

GERUND is the “continuous form of a verb”.

Read this sentence.

. Smoking is prohibited here.

The word “smoking” is formed from the verb smoke by adding –ing.

You can see that here in this sentence, the word “smoking” does the function of a subject (Noun). So, it is a Verb-Noun.

That is called Gerund.

On many occasions the “continuous form of the verb” can be used as a noun.

“Smoke” is the simple present-tense form.

“Smoked” is the past-tense form of the verb “smoke”.

“Smoking” is the continuous form of the verb “smoke”.

Those continuous forms of many verbs can be used as nouns.

Those nouns are called “verbal nouns”.

“GERUND” is one of the two verbal nouns.

The other verbal noun is “Infinitive”.

We have seen the “Infinitive” in another section.

Let us see “Gerund” now.

A gerund is that form of the verb which ends in –ing and has the force of a noun and a verb. 

1. A gerund is used as the subject of a verb.

Examples:

• Smoking is prohibited here.

• Reading improves your knowledge.

• Running behind a running-car is dangerous.

• Walking alone is what he likes the most.

• Buying vegetables in that market is a difficult affair.

• Following others is not advisable.

You can easily see that the subjects in all these sentences are in gerund forms.

2. A gerund is used as an object of a verb.

Examples:

• Begin reading the book.

• I like going for a walk.

• They prefer buying online rather offline.

3. Object of a preposition.

Examples:

• My neighbor is good at breeding dogs.

• I am fond of eating sweets.

• Before entering the room, please remove your foot-wear.

4. Complement of a verb.

Examples:

• What I detest the most is drinking alcohol.

• Seeing is not believing.