Gerund's question

"It was found that fifty percent of the students believed that there had been an increase in profiling of blacks in the institute. "

Does this made up sentence grammatically line up?

It does; but I would call "profiling" a verbal noun, rather than a gerund.

(The difference lies in the use of "of", to connect it to its object: a gerund would take a direct object.)

MrP

@Questioner: Yes, it does.

@MrPedantic: A gerund *is* a verbal noun. If it wasn't a verbal noun, then it would be a participle, not a gerund. There is not, and has never been, a rule that gerunds have to take "of".

Thanks guys.
The reason why I wasn't sure is because I thought I needed a 'the' before 'profiling.'

Hello Lazar,

Here are two kinds of nominal ing-form:

1. Constantly eating chips is good for you.
2. The constant eating of chips is good for you.

Of these, the gerund is the later form; it can be qualified by an adverb, and can take an object (#1).

The gerund arose directly from the verbal noun proper, which takes an object via "of" and can be qualified by an adjective (#2).

Thus:

3. An increase in covert profiling of blacks.
4. ??? An increase in covertly profiling of blacks.

Since "profiling" here can't be qualified by an adverb, it isn't a gerund.

I agree that the terminology is deficient: "gerund" is indeed a subset of "verbal noun" (as is the ing-form in "mixed blessings").

All the best,

MrP

Lazar,
< A gerund *is* a verbal noun. If it wasn't a verbal noun, then it would be a participle, not a gerund.>
Similarly, we could call a mule an asinine horse.
I think verbal nouns are all nouns derived from verbs e.g.
confuse – confusion, confusing
fail – failure, failing
Most verbal nouns can have articles, gerunds never.
Verbal nouns can have the plural, gerunds can’t.

The sittings of the parliament. – a noun
Sitting in the sun is his favourite pastime. – a gerund

The rest has been said by MrP.

I've posted the question on the Wikipedia Reference Desk, because I'm really not familiar with the distinction that MrPedantic has suggested.

Could anyone answer the more fundamental question of 'why learn grammar'?

I am not being funny



I know that grammar is an important part of linguistics - the analysis of language. But I think that this discussion about Gerunds proves that for most native speakers, these grammatical distinctions are not very important.

I nearly provided the answer with my capitalisation, which I have corrected.