noun or verb

<< I am a (well educated) native speaker, so I have a good sense of what is right and wrong in the English Language. >>

<< there were no articles on 'Gerund' in Wikipedia Simple English. >>

Surely a well-educated native speaker would be able to cope with the proper English version, rather than one with limited vocabulary aimed at non-native speakers?

Hi

I thought it would be interesting to see what the description of 'Gerund' was in Wikipedia Simple English. I thought it would be the sort of item that would be relevant. However, there was nothing.

Wikipedia proper, in contrast had a very extensive article about the Gerund in various different languages.

To be able to explain something simply is a skill. To write something in simple easy to understand English is an under-rated skill.

I was hoping to go from a simple explanation to a more complex one. I did not find the article in Wikipedia particularly easy to understand. It was a case of 'too much information'.

<<In linguistics, "gerund" is a term used to refer to various non-finite verb forms in various languages:>>

What is a 'non-finite verb form?

I think you will find it is far from straight forward.

<<What is a 'non-finite verb form? >>

non-finite simply means a state that does not refer to any tense (which includes conjugated forms), like an infinitive (eg. "[to] sing")

simply put, in English, the gerund is the -ing form of the verb which acts as a noun (as opposed to the -ing form acting as an adjective [eg. "the sinking ship"])

hope this helps

Is it a verb or a noun?

The answer to this question is far from straight forward. In Simple English Wikipedia under 'verb' there is the following sentences.

<<

Verbs vs. nouns

The gerund-particle sometimes looks like a noun. This is especially true when it is used as a subject, as in the following example:

* Running is good for you.

The main differences between these verbs and nouns are: modifiers, number, and object/complement

>>

This is a simple explanation!

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verb

"In Simple English Wikipedia under 'verb' there is the following sentences. "

This is the sort of sentence that would be picked up by my Spelling/Grammar checker.

Subject/Verb Agreement

"are the following sentences"

OR

"is the following sentence"

What happened was that I changed 'sentence' to 'sentences' but I forgot to change 'is' to 'are'.

""In Simple English Wikipedia under 'verb' there ARE the following sentences."

I would classify that as a Typo!

For heaven's sake,
It's a gerund - a mule, the offspring of a male donkey (verb/noun) and a female horse (noun/verb). "It's a little bit you and it's a little bit me".
A storm in a teacup.
MollyB is rubbing her hands, she's had you again (cross me out :) ).

Ya, there's no way it's a noun. Replace it with a noun and this what you get:
There's no monkey her.