Nolan himself saw that something was to pay.—E. E. Hale.
271. The various offices which the infinitive and the participle have in the sentence will be treated in Part II., under "Analysis," as we are now learning merely to recognize the forms.
GERUNDS.
272. The gerund is like the participle in form, and like a noun in use.
The participle has been called an adjectival verbal; the gerund may be called a noun verbal. While the gerund expresses action, it has several attributes of a noun,—it may be governed as a noun; it may be the subject of a verb, or the object of a verb or a preposition; it is often preceded by the definite article; it is frequently modified by a possessive noun or pronoun.
Distinguished from participle and verbal noun.
273. It differs from the participle in being always used as a noun: it never belongs to or limits a noun.
It differs from the verbal noun in having the property of governing a noun (which the verbal noun has not) and of expressing action (the verbal noun merely names an action, Sec. II).
The following are examples of the uses of the gerund:—
(1) Subject: "The taking of means not to see another morning had all day absorbed every energy;" "Certainly dueling is bad, and has been put down."