(1) Belligerent, gesture, suggest, congested, digestion, register, jest; (2) gerund, congeries.

It is easy for men to write, one after another, of cases and genders, moods and tenses, gerunds and supines: in these and the like there has been great diligence used; and particles themselves, in some languages, have been, with great show of exactness, ranked into their several orders.

But Neef, in his zeal for reformation, carries the anticlimax fairly off the brink; and declares, "In the grammar which shall be the work of my pupils, there shall be found no nouns, no pronouns, no articles, no participles, no verbs, no prepositions, no conjunctions, no adverbs, no interjections, no gerunds, not even one single supine.

They convey no affirmation, but usually relate to nouns or pronouns, like adjectives, except when they are joined with auxiliaries to form the compound tenses of their verbs; or when they have in part the nature of substantives, like the Latin gerunds.

His rule implicitly denies that they can either be parts of their verbs in the formation of tenses, or be governed by prepositions in the character of gerunds.

15.The participle in ing is, on many occasions, equivalent to the infinitive verb, so that the speaker or writer may adopt either, just as he pleases: as, "So their gerunds are sometimes found having [or to have] an absolute or apparently neuter signification.

21.The Latin gerund is "a kind of verbal noun, partaking of the nature of a participle.

"A gerund is a participial noun, of the neuter gender, and singular-number, declinable like a substantive, having no vocative, construed like a substantive, and governing the case of its verb.

Our participle in ing, when governed by a preposition, undoubtedly corresponds very nearly, both in sense and construction, to this Latin gerund; the principal difference being, that the one is declined, like a noun, and the other is not.

Nor does the Latin gerund often govern the genitive like a noun, or ever stand as the direct object of a transitive verb, except in some few doubtful instances about which the grammarians dispute.

Adam says, "The gerund in English becomes a substantive, by prefixing the article to it, and then it is always to be construed with the preposition of; as, 'He is employed in writing letters,' or, 'in the writing of letters:'

For this reason, I have framed the syntactical rule for participles so as to include under that name the gerund, or gerundive, which is a participle governed by a preposition.

Here too the words, gerund, parents, One, Three, them, Agent, agents, and Israelites, are rightly put in the objective case; yet doubtless some will think, though I do not, that they might as well have been put in the possessive.

42.A late author observes as follows: "That the English gerund, participle, or verbal noun, in ing, has both an active and a passive signification, there can be little doubt.

Whether the Latin gerund has precisely a similar import, or whether it is only active, it may be difficult, and, indeed, after all, it is not of much moment, to ascertain.

The gerund in Latin most commonly governs the case of its own verb, as does the active participle, both in Latin and English: as, "Efferor studio patres vestros videndi.

That is, "To gerunds in di there is sometimes not inelegantly added a genitive plural: as, 'When, for the sake of seeing of them, I went into the forum.

"Gerunds are so called because they, as it were, signify the thing in gerendo, (anciently written gerundo,) in doing; and, along with the action, convey an idea of the agent.

4. A gerund, or infinitive in ing: [Seeing is believing].

There are two infinitives: the root infinitive (commonly preceded by to, the so-called sign of the infinitive), and the gerund, or infinitive in -ing.

There is danger of confusing the present participle with the gerund, or infinitive in -ing, unless the adjective character of the one and the noun character of the other are clearly distinguished:

Driving the cows to pasture was his daily task (gerund)].

Such words, partaking of the nature of both noun and verb, are called GERUNDS.

Gerunds, 50-51.

Nouns, 16-42; form of the possessive case, 16-17; use and misuse of the possessive case, 17-18; singular and plural, 18-21; plural forms of foreign origin, 20; gender, 21; abbreviations, 22; misused, 22-42; gerunds and verbal nouns, 50-51.