Verbals

Gerunds

An -ing verb form used as a noun. It keeps a verb’s appetite — it can take an object — while filling a slot meant for a noun, and the diagram uses a distinct stepped symbol to show exactly that double life.

What you’ll learn

Tell a gerund from a present participle
Draw the gerund step and understand what each part of it means
Place a gerund phrase as a subject or an object
Keep a gerund's own object attached to it

The -ing problem

Three different things in English end in -ing, and they are spelled identically. Only the job distinguishes them.

Gerund — used as a noun. Rescuing the kitten took an hour.
Participle — used as an adjective. The rescuing party arrived. See Participles.
Progressive verb — part of the verb phrase. She was rescuing the kitten. See Verb Phrases.

The gerund step

A gerund gets its own symbol: a small step — a horizontal, a short drop, then another horizontal — sitting on a pedestal in whatever slot the gerund is filling.

The step is doing real work. The word is written across the corner, with the first part on the upper level and the rest on the lower, which is a visual way of saying this began as a verb and is being used as a noun. Nothing else in the notation has that shape.

“Rescuing the kitten took an hour.”

Reed-Kellogg — the stepped gerund symbol on a pedestal

csubjClausal subject
detDeterminer
dobjDirect object
ROOTRoot of the sentence

Dependency — csubj, with its own dobj hanging below

Comparing the two views

The step and the pedestal together make a strong claim the tree does not: that this construction is simultaneously a verb (it has an object) and a noun (it is the subject). The dependency parse states only the second half — Rescuing is csubj of took — and leaves the verbal side implicit in the fact that kitten hangs off it as dobj. Both are there; only the diagram gives the duality its own symbol.

Gerund as an object

A gerund fills any slot a noun could. As a direct object it sits on its pedestal in the object position, after the half vertical: He avoids driving at night.

It is also very common after a preposition — tired of waiting, good at drawing — where the gerund becomes the object of the preposition, sitting on a pedestal on the phrase’s horizontal.

“He avoids driving at night.”

Reed-Kellogg — the gerund in the object slot, with its own phrase

nsubjNominal subject
ROOTRoot of the sentence
xcompOpen clausal complement
prepPrepositional modifier
pobjObject of preposition

Dependency — the phrase attaches to the gerund, not the main verb

Comparing the two views

Note where the prepositional phrase attaches. at night modifies driving, not avoids — the driving happens at night, not the avoiding. The diagram shows this by hanging the phrase off the gerund’s own line, above the base line entirely. The tree shows it by making driving the head of at. If the phrase were attached to avoids instead, both pictures would look visibly different, which is a good reason to draw both.

Key terms

Gerund: An -ing verb form used as a noun. Tagged VBG, same as a participle — the tag does not distinguish them, only the relation does. Swimming keeps her fit. He enjoys cooking.
Gerund phrase: The gerund plus its own objects and modifiers, filling one noun slot together. Rescuing the kitten took an hour. She dislikes waiting in queues.
Verbal: A verb form used as another part of speech. The three are infinitives, gerunds and participles. She wants to leave. — an infinitive. Swimming keeps her fit. — a gerund. The whistling kettle woke us. — a participle.
See: Infinitives, Participles
csubj: “Clausal subject” — the relation when a whole construction, rather than a single noun, is the subject. Rescuing the kitten took an hour. — Rescuing is the csubj of took. Whoever arrives first will unlock the door.
See: Core Arguments

Practice on a real sentence

Two verbs sharing a subject and an object. Watch how the tree handles them.

“Barbara mowed and watered the lawn.”

Parts of speech

Give every word its coarse Universal Dependencies category.

Words 0/6Attempts 0Correct 0Time 0:00

Sentence — select a part of speech below, then click the word(s) it applies to

Barbara mowed and watered the lawn.