Gerund vs Present Participle

[Lewiy]

(Possibly one for Emma this!!)

I need to settle a dispute....take the following sentance:

"He is waiting for his friend to return from her break before going on his."

Is "going" acting as a gerund or a present participle?

 

[RoryA]

It's a gerund.

 

[cornflakegirl]

Um, I'm not sure. A clause with a gerund in should act as a noun in the whole sentence, and I don't think this does...

EDIT - but I don't think it's acting as an adjective either. Have posted the question on another forum that actually has a Pedants' Corner just for such questions

 

[Lewiy]

Um, I'm not sure. A clause with a gerund in should act as a noun in the whole sentence, and I don't think this does...

EDIT - but I don't think it's acting as an adjective either. Have posted the question on another forum that actually has a Pedants' Corner just for such questions

Thanks!! I just thought this was an interesting question because it's not really clear cut. Personally, I think that it's still acting as a verb, because the noun is "break" and you also have the pronoun "his". So I can't see it possibly acting as any kind of noun!!

I don't mind being proven wrong on this....I just would like to know the reasoning behind it!!!

 

[RoryA]

I would have said it is the object of the before preposition and as such is a nominal. As in:
"Before doing your taxes, you should call your accountant."
where I would say doing is a gerund.
It's probably a borderline case though.

 

[cornflakegirl]

I think you could replace the phrase with "He is waiting for summer before leaving" and retain essentially the same grammatical construction (just to get rid of the extraneous confusion of pronouns etc).

Pretty much everyone on the other site is voting for present participle, because going / leaving doesn't seem to be acting as a noun.

 

[cornflakegirl]

Apparently I took forever to type that last post, as I hadn't seen Rory's latest contribution - have copied it to the other thread to fuel debate.

Interesting thought from the other side - it isn't a gerund because in other languages it would be an infinitive (eg French avant d'aller) - not sure the argument is watertight...

 

[RoryA]

About as watertight as a colander!

 

[cornflakegirl]

But, thinking about it more, I still can't find a noun that I can slot into "He is waiting for summer before leaving" instead of "leaving" - does before have to have an object?

 

[cornflakegirl]

Okay, this link seems to agree with Rory...