A gerund constitutes a distinct part of speech in traditional grammar
the verdict
REFUTED
the evidence says no
refutedsupported
the weight of evidence
0 sources for · 1 against
AS REPORTEDno primary record reached; this is what the reporting says
Available linguistic reference material refutes the idea that a gerund constitutes a distinct part of speech, explaining instead that it functions as an inflected form of a verb.
The term "gerund" is a fudge. It is used as if it was a subcategory of verb, when in fact, of course, it is just a particular inflected form of a given verb. Worse than this, this pseudo part of speech, in English at least, is actually 25% a part of speech and 50% a grammatical function label. The reason for this is that people who differentiate between "gerunds" and "participles" (meaning, with regard to English, "present participles") do so on the basis of the words' grammatical relations. So whenever this form of verb is the head of a clause used as a subject or object of a verb or the complement of a preposition, they deem it a gerund. Whenever it is the head of a clause used as a modifier or as the complement of the verb BE in a continuous construction, they deem it a participle. Of course this is to try and differentiate a different form of a verb according to its grammatical funct