Gerundium: Erklärung und Übungen

Formation

This is how the gerund looks like in present tense, active and passive voice:

Use

Gerunds differ from participles in the grammatical functions they can have: Gerunds can perform as nouns and take over all their grammatical functions but they can never be used to replace a verb or an adjective. Thus, gerunds appear as subjects or objects:

Subject

Object of a verb

Object of a preposition

But it is not always clear if you have a gerund or a participle construction in front of you. When you are writing a text you do not need to know it explicitly and can rely on your sprachgefühl (this word actually exists in English). Below you can find some more information on how to tell the two apart:

Gerund vs. participle

Like stated above, the gerund functions as a noun. But it also has some properties of a verb:

- an adverb/adverbial phrase may follow: Eating quickly may cause constipation.

- it can take an object: Paul prefers watching telly over reading books.

- it can take a perfect or even a passive form (see table above)

The two following cases are especially tricky ones:

1. Gerund/participle describing a noun: I attended a dancing course last week. I saw a dancing child last week.

Sentence one is about a Tanzkurs and not tanzenden Kurs: gerund

Sentence two is not about a Tanzkind but about a tanzendes Kind: participle (In German too!)

2. Gerund/Participle at the beginning of a sentence: Unfolding her napkin, she realised that she was very hungry. After unfolding her napkin, she realised that she was very hungry.

Translate it to German:

Ihre Serviette auseinanderfaltend bemerkte sie, wie hungrig sie war.= participle

It does not work for the sentence with the preposition:

*Nachdem ihre Serviette auseinanderfaltend...  "unfolding her napkin" is the object of the preposition after and therefore a gerund.

Typical examples

Gerund after prepositions

When you want to use a preposition followed by a verb, this verb has to be changed into a gerund form. Otherwise, verbs may not follow prepositions immediately.

With gerund

Without gerund

Gerund after verb+preposition

Some frequent combinations are: to apologise for, to look forward to, to depend on, to be afraid of

Gerund or to-infinitive

Some verb's meanings differ depending on whether they are followed by a to-infinitive or gerund. A complete list would not be of much use. Instead I will just provide you with a couple of examples with German translations as illustration:

to like

to forget, to remember

to mean

to try

to go on

You have now reached the end of the grammar crash course. I hope that besides some repetition you could also learn some new things and feel more comfortable using the English language. The next sections will focus specifically on words and deal with phenomena like false friends, phrasal verbs etc.

Wie bereits gesagt, kann das Gerundium wie ein Substantiv verwendet werden. Es hat aber auch einige Eigenschaften, die auch ein Verb hat:

- es kann ein Adverbialphrase folgen: Eating quickly may cause constipation.

- es kann ein Objekt haben: Paul prefers watching telly over reading books.

- es kann im Perfect oder sogar Passiv stehen (siehe Tabelle oben)

Es gibt zwei Situationen, bei denen die Unterscheidung besonders schwierig ist:

1. Gerundium/Partizip beschreiben ein Nomen: I attended a dancing course last week. I saw a dancing child last week.

Im ersten Beispiel geht es um einen Tanzkurs, nicht um einen tanzenden Kurs: Gerundium

Im zweiten Beispiel geht es nicht um ein Tanzkind, sondern um ein tanzendes Kind: Partizip (auch im Deutschen!)

2. Gerundium/Partizip am Satzanfang: Unfolding her napkin, she realised that she was very hungry. After unfolding her napkin, she realised that she was very hungry.

Auch in diesem Fall nützt dir eine Hilfsübersetzung ins Deutsche. Den ersten Satz könnte man so übersetzen:

Ihre Serviette auseinanderfaltend bemerkte sie, wie hungrig sie war. Es handelt sich also um ein Partizip.

Der zweite Satz lässt sich wegen der Präposition nicht hilfsweise mit einem Partizip übersetzen:

*Nachdem ihre Serviette auseinanderfaltend... Es handelt sich bei "unfolding her napkin" um das Objekt der Präposition after und somit um ein Gerundium.