[Grammar] Gerund

Status
Not open for further replies.

amigos

Junior Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2008
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Urdu
Home Country
Pakistan
Current Location
Canada
Hi,

Is "I stopped loving her" grammatically correct? The reason why I am asking this is because "love" is an stative verb which can't be used in "ing" form. How about if I say it a bit differently like:

"I ceased to love her."


Thanks
 

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
Is "I stopped loving her" grammatically correct? The reason why I am asking this is because "love" is an stative verb which can't be used in "ing" form.
Actually, some people believe that stative verbs cannot be used in the progressive form (which does not involve a gerund). That is over-simplified. The following sentence is fine:

"I have been in Greece for two days and I am loving it here."

When 'stop + verb+verb-form' indicates that the state or action ceases, that verb-form is always the gerund.
 

amigos

Junior Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2008
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Urdu
Home Country
Pakistan
Current Location
Canada
Thanks Moderator,

What I understand is that the word "loving" in "I stopped loving her" is a gerund, not a progressive verb, right? Please could you elaborate on it.

Thanks
 

Tdol

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Staff member
Joined
Nov 13, 2002
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
Japan
I am living in Greece. - Progressive form (to be + present participle) to show a temporary state of affairs. Progressive forms are less common with stative verbs, but they are possible.
I like living in Greece. - Gerund- gerunds can be used as subjects, after some verbs, after prepositions, etc. There's no problem with using a stative verb in this way.
 

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
Thanks Moderator
I appreciate that you wish to be polite, but in this forum we simply address each other by our usernames.

We UE moderators do some tidying up when trolls and time-wasters disrupt the peace of the forum. We are experienced teachers and/or writers, but our opinions are just that - opinions. So, I am '5jj', not 'Moderator'. :)
 

BobK

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 29, 2006
Location
Spencers Wood, near Reading, UK
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
I see that you live in Canada, amigos; and the two contributors who have corrected you (rightly, in Br English) are speakers of British English. When I was working in a group working on documentation standards for DEC (a very large company then, many of whose employees, and most of whose writers, came from the USA and Canada) I found that using the word 'gerund' generated more heat than light, as there was no trans-Atlantic agreement on its meaning. (I never reached a satisfactory understanding of the Am Eng sort of 'gerund'; still worse was the word 'gerundive', which I had previously met only in Latin grammar - where I hope it stays!) So proceed with caution. ;-)

b
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top