Terms "gerund" and "verbal adverb"

[Jacee Cho]

Hi Zhenya,
 
Gerund can be verbal adverb or participle or both depending on languages. It is verbal adverb in French and Esperanto. But in English, if I remember correctly (from my Linguistics course a long long time ago), gerund is a nominal form of a verb. So it would be Russian "otglagolnoe sushestvitelnoe" (verbal noun), and verbal adverb is "deeprechastie".  So, for example, you should be able to use gerund as a subject or object in English since it has a noun-like quality. (Smoking is bad,  I don't like smoking). Verbal adverb should be used instead of a clause.  
 
In some Russian textbooks...especially old ones....you see the term "gerund" often in a broad sense for verbal nouns, participles and verbal adverbs. As far as I know the term "gerund" is used less frequently in the Russian textbooks nowadays and they try to distinguish them as they are indeed different when it comes to their syntactic roles. 
 
 
Jacee
 
Ji-Hyeon Jacee Cho University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242 319-594-4315 "Soon It Shall Also Come To Pass"> Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 22:06:29 -0600> From: evgeny-pareshnev at UIOWA.EDU> Subject: [SEELANGS] Terms "gerund" and "verbal adverb"> To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU> > Dear SEELANGS, > > Could somebody tell me about the difference between English terms "gerund" and "verbal adverb" as relates to the Russian "deeprichastie", and what is the principal difference between these terms? The thing is, some textbooks for Russian use the term "gerund" and other textbooks have term "verbal adverb". Thank you in advance.> > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------> Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription> options, and more. Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:> http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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