I saw him singing.

[MarceloPereira]

in the sentence I saw him singing, is singing a present participle or gerund?

 

[jutfrank]

What are you thinking the difference is between the two?

 

[Piscean]

iIn the sentence,(no comma) I saw him singing, is singing is a present participle or gerund?

Note my corrections.

 

[MarceloPereira]

What are you thinking the difference is between the two?

Gerund works as a noun, whereas the participle is a verb form

 

[Holmes]

Notice that "I saw him singing" can be contrasted with "I saw him sing."

In "I saw him sing," the speaker indicates that the whole situation has been seen: he sang, and the speaker saw him do so.

In "I saw him singing," the speaker claims only to have seen him in the act of singing; perhaps the speaker didn't see him start or finish singing.

If I had to choose, I'd say "participle," since the meaning of "him singing" is parallel to the progressive: "He was singing, and I saw him doing so."

(In generative grammar, the construction has a fancy analysis that would require so many preliminaries that it is not even worth stating here.)

Curiously, the bare-infinitive construction co-occurs with the -ing variant in a very famous song from the musical Les Misérables:

Do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men?.

 

[PaulMatthews]

in the sentence I saw him singing, is singing a present participle or gerund?

Traditional grammar classifies "singing" here as a present participle.

But the traditional distinction between gerunds and present participles is not important, since there is no viable distinction in function. What matters is that they are verbs, as opposed to nouns or anything else.

Modern grammar simplifies matters by categorising both -ing forms as 'gerund-participles'. How much simpler is that!

 

[Piscean]

Modern grammar simplifies matters by categorising both -ing forms as 'gerund-participles'. How much simpler is that!

I'd write Some modern grammarians ...

Others name use different names. Declerck (2006) sticks with the traditional gerunds and participles, Aarts (2011) goes for -ing participles.
I use -ing forms.

 

[PaulMatthews]

I'd write Some modern grammarians ...

Others name use different names. Declerck (2006) sticks with the traditional gerunds and participles, Aarts (2011) goes for -ing participles.
I use -ing forms.

You're nit-picking for the sake of it. Huddleston's term is perfect and obvious.

 

[Piscean]

You're nit-picking for the sake of it.

pot - kettle.

Huddleston's term is perfect and obvious.

-ing participles and -ing forms strike me as even more simple and obvious.

 

[PaulMatthews]

pot - kettle.

-ing participles and -ing forms strike me as even more simple and obvious.

Their weakness is that neither conveys the fact that it combines the traditional gerund and present participle.

 

[Piscean]

But the traditional distinction between gerunds and present participles is not important,

Right.

Huddleston's term is perfect and obvious.

-ing participles and -ing forms strike me as even more simple and obvious.

Their weakness is that neither conveys the fact that it combines the traditional gerund and present participle.

As most of us no longer distinguish between gerunds and participles, it seems pointless to use these two names for the -ing form.

 

[White Hat]

We could compare 'I've seen him dancing' (participle) with 'I've seen his dancing' (gerund), couldn't we?

 

[PaulMatthews]

Right.

As most of us no longer distinguish between gerunds and participles, it seems pointless to use these two names for the -ing form.

You must surely know that much trad grammar still distinguishes the two terms, and they are widely taught in schools and even some colleges (look at the OP's question).

It seems obvious to me that it's convenient to combine the two traditional terms, labelling it with the compound term 'gerund-participle'.

If you don't like it, let it alone.

 

[Piscean]

Have a nice day.