ING form – Adjective or noun?

Written by Bill Teach

Jogging is good for you!                              I like cooking!

How important is it for you to learn the functions and the nomenclatures of words when learning a new language? 

The answer depends on whether you need some kind of reference during the learning process. Some learn through observation, while others need a more theoretical approach. In my case, I need both, though, the latter explains certain things that are not so obvious. For example: Why can the ‘ING’ form be used both as an adjective and a noun?

The easiest explanation that I can think of is that certain nouns, adjectives and adverbs derive from verbs. In other words, they take the 'ING' form because there is no other corresponding word.  

Examples:

• Jogging is good for you. (Noun)
• This is really interesting. (Adjective)
• She left the room smiling. (Adverb)

‘ING’ as noun - Gerund

When the ‘ING’ takes a noun form, it is called gerund. When we say words such as cooking, jogging, etc. we think of the activity rather than the action/verb. But in some cases the gerund form can refer to the action/verb as opposed to the activity.

Compare:  

• Cooking demands lots of talent. (activity – as a subject it can be replaced by another noun)
• I hate cooking. (activity – you can replace cooking with another object such as chocolate)
• Cooking spaghetti demands some talent. (action/verb -  gerund phrase)
• I hate cooking spaghetti. (action/verb – verb pattern, some verbs require other verbs to be complete. In this case the pattern is verb +verb(ING))

Note: When the gerund form refers to the action/verb a complement of the gerund is usually necessary. Sometimes we can change the order of the clause to understand better.

• Making chocolate is easy. / It is easy to make chocolate. (The sentence switches from gerund to infinitive form, thus action/verb)
• Chocolate making is an old trade. (chocolate = attributive noun, impossible to transform this into infinitive)   

Some activities that use the ING form:

• Sports: Jogging, skiing, running, skydiving, bicycling, skating, etc.   
• Hobby: writing, cooking, reading etc.  

Note: The verb ‘GO’ is often used with sport activities in gerund form.

• I go jogging / running/ skating.

With some hobbies we use ‘do’.

• I did some cooking /reading last night.

To be continued…