In Noun phrases^x, Constructions^x, Gerunds^x

All of your examples are gerunds if we stick to modern terminology. Forget about the terminology verbal noun . It's total garbage! It has many different definitions, depending on the author and when the grammar book was written. __ The modern definition is given at ...

Paco2004 wrote: Hello RVW Thank you for the answer. Your thought sounds someway more reasonable. But still I cannot feel confident. If "teaching English" is appositive to "a position", I think, "She found teaching English at a high school" should be idiomatic, but it is not the case....

What is the word sucks in " Homework sucks " ? Is it a verb or an adjective? If it is a verb, what does homework suck? This brings up an excellent point, and a wonderful opportunity to discover the beautiful syntactic structure of the English language. The question at hand is " Does an English...

CalifJim wrote: If a student points to some construction and asks me if it's the subjunctive or not, I can't reply, 'No, it's a monkey!' Now there you are wrong! You are the teacher and can say any dang thing you want! In fact a smart retort like that might go a long way toward making your...

If a student points to some construction and asks me if it's the subjunctive or not, I can't reply, 'No, it's a monkey!' Now there you are wrong! You are the teacher and can say any dang thing you want! In fact a smart retort like that might go a long way toward making your students...

Hello guys I might be wrong as usual, but at least in writing level I differentiate the use "a person + ing" and that of "a person's + ing" in a way like : when the verb can take a person as its object, use "a person + ing", and when the verb cannot take a person as its object, use "a person's +...

MrPedantic wrote: Hello Pinenut I'm happy to remove (doing) from my answer. "We admit to X , where X is a noun phrase." Thus: 1. ...admit to his being a St Valentine baby . Here, "being" is a gerund; the underlined portion is a noun phrase , and acts as the participial object of...

MrPedantic wrote: Hello Anon It's possible to make a case for either form. 1. ...admit to his being a St Valentine baby . Here, "being" is a gerund; the underlined portion is a noun phrase, and acts as the participial object of "to". 2. ...admit to him being a St Valentine...

Dave, First of all, and even when everyone is surely aware of this, I must insist that even when I believe my knowledge of the English grammar is good, I'm not a grammarian or a linguist. It would be completely absurd for me to try and analyse a language that is not even my own in depth when I...

Here's an example in which both are correct: is that it appears to be the object of the possessive adjective "your". In a normal noun phrase, a possessive determiner cannot be omitted: I regretted his decision. I regretted decision. The sentence becomes ungrammatical with the removal...