A present participle or a gerund?

Status
Not open for further replies.

omasta

Member
Joined
Nov 17, 2009
Member Type
Student or Learner
Hi!

There is a sentence from a newspaper article:

I don’t think it’s a case of us having to warn them.

And my question is:

Is the "having", in this sentence, a present participle or a gerund?

I think that it is a present participle, but I'm not quite sure.

Thank you.
 

Frank Antonson

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
That's a good question. There is an alternate way of saying that, which I think is now more old fashion. "...of our having to..." in which case it would clearly be a gerund. I would tend to say it is still a gerund. I have read about this in House and Harman, but I can't remember at the moment. I think the discussion was about why "us" is in the objective case when it is the subject of the gerund.
I'll look into it.
Frank
 

Kondorosi

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2009
Member Type
Student or Learner
Hi!

There is a sentence from a newspaper article:

I don’t think it’s a case of us having to warn them.

And my question is:

Is the "having", in this sentence, a present participle or a gerund?

I think that it is a present participle, but I'm not quite sure.

Thank you.

us having to warn them = non-finite -ing clause acting as a prepositional complement. Gerund. (I am pretty sure.)

Is the "having", in this sentence, a present participle or a gerund?

Present participle is related to morphology; it is a verb form. On the other hand, a gerund is not a form, although a gerund's form is typical and specific. Gerund is a grammatical term that denotes function -- (an -ing form) that functions as a noun. You are comparing an apple with an orange. All gerunds have present participle form.

havingtowarn.gif


In 'us/our having to warn them', 'us/our' looks like a determiner that premodifies the gerund clause.

A case of what? A case of having to warn them. It is a case of our/us... .
 
Last edited:

Frank Antonson

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
By "case" I mean subjective, possessive (genitive), dative, objective (accusative), vocative, etc. that effect the endings of nouns and adjectives in many languages, but in English mostly the pronouns.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top