[Grammar] Gerund or infinitive

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Babai

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1.let's go fishing. 2.let's go hunting. here ''fishing'' and ''hunting'' are infinitives or gerunds?.Because gerund always ends in - 'ing form'
 
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5jj

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1.let's go fishing. 2.let's go hunting. here ''fishing'' and ''hunting'' are infinitives or gerunds?.Because gerund always ends in - 'ing form'
Infinitive forms never end in ing - unless that is part of the verb itself, for example, bring, cling, sing.
 

Chicken Sandwich

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An infinitive is the basic form a verb used with "to". In 'I want to read a book', "to read" is an infinitive.
 

5jj

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An infinitive is the basic form a verb used with to. In 'I want to read a book', "to read" is an infitive.

The bare infinitive is not preceded by 'to':

I can/must/will/don't swim.


Many people prefer to call a form such as 'to swim ' a to- infinitive.
 

Babai

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Infinitive forms never end in ing - unless that is part of the verb itself, for example, bring, cling, sing.
Then is ''go fishing'' according to you a gerund? cause you mentioned above that
Infinitive forms never end in
ing - unless that is part of the verb itself, for example, bring, cling, sing.But i am confuses where is the preposition before ''fishing'' cause many books say that preposition is placed before the gerund in the case of intransitive verbs and the gerund works as a prepositional object and in the case of transitive verbs, the gerund works as a direct object of the transitive verbs.So is ''fishing'' a gerund of the verb ''go''?.If i make any mistake in course of writing, please forgive me.Thank you.
 

tzfujimino

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Then is ''go fishing'' according to you a gerund? cause you mentioned above that
Infinitive forms never end in
ing - unless that is part of the verb itself, for example, bring, cling, sing.But i am confuses where is the preposition before ''fishing'' cause many books say that preposition is placed before the gerund in the case of intransitive verbs and the gerund works as a prepositional object Do you mean "go on...ing?" Yes, I think the "...ing" here is a gerund - the object of the prepositon "on".
and in the case of transitive verbs, the gerund works as a direct object of the transitive verbs.
Yes, I think I can agree with you.
So is ''fishing'' a gerund of the verb ''go''?.If i make any mistake in course of writing, please forgive me.Thank you.

Hello, Babai.:-D
Well, you asked, "'fishing' and 'hunting' are infinitives or gerunds?"
5jj answered, "Infinitive forms never end in ing," which I think means "(if asked whether they are infinitives or gerunds, I'd say) they're definitely not infinitives." He didn't actually say they are gerunds.
I personally do not think they are gerunds, since "go" is an intransitive verb. Those "-ing forms" are not the objects of the verb "go". I think they are present participles.
However, it is one of the cases where labelling is meaningless. They are just "-ing forms". And...it is enough. Don't you think so?:-D
 
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