In Noun phrases^x, Literature^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 ...

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...