[Grammar] Participle or Gerund..

[rambharosey]

There is strict penalty for violating law requiring residents to keep their gardens tidy.


In this sentence, is "requiring" used as a Participle or a Gerund? Any way to figure this out.

Thanks.

 

[bhaisahab]

There is a strict penalty/are strict penalties for violating the law requiring residents to keep their gardens tidy.


In this sentence, is "requiring" used as a Participle or a Gerund? Any way to figure this out.

Thanks.

Does it matter? There are far more important problems in your sentence.

 

[rambharosey]

Thanks for replying. Yes, it does matter.

 

[bhaisahab]

Thanks for replying. Yes, it does matter.

Why does it matter?

 

[Osya Bender]

Why does it matter?

In English the same word can be a noun, a verb, an adjective and an adverb (or a gerund, an adjective and a participle, etc). In Russian (I don't know how things stand in Hindi) this doesn't work. So, in order to know better how to make up sentences in English we (non English native speakers) want to know how to distinguish parts of speech in English

In this sentence, is "requiring" used as a Participle or a Gerund? Any way to figure this out.

Let's change it a little:
There is a strict penalty for violating the law requiring residents to keep their gardens tidy.

There is a strict penalty for violating the law that requires residents to keep their gardens tidy.
There is a strict penalty for violating the law that requires that residents keep their gardens tidy.
You see that this "ing-word" easyly turns into a verb. A participle is more similar to a verb rather than to a noun (unlike a gerund that is more similar to a noun). So, your ing-word is a participle
(But I'm not a teacher and even not a native speaker, so wait for others' help;-))

 

[5jj]

In English the same word can be a noun, a verb, an adjective and an adverb (or a gerund, an adjective and a participle, etc). In Russian (I don't know how things stand in Hindi) this doesn't work. So, in order to know better how to make up sentences in English we (non English native speakers) want to know how to distinguish parts of speech in English

I can see why you might want to do this in terms of the labels you use in your own language. I don't really see the benefit of using English terms when, I would guess, over 90% of native speakers have no idea what gerunds and participles are. Of the remaining 10%, only a minority could distinguish between them in a sentence.

A participle is more similar to a verb rather than to a noun (unlike a gerund that is more similar to a noun).

That may work in this sentence, and indeed in others, but it's not an infallible guide. Slightly more reliable (if you insist on labelling the forms) is that a participle has qualities of both a verb and an adjective; a gerund has qualities of both a verb and a noun.