English Grammar Drills

Gerunds and Infinitives 85
Gerund:
main
object
verb gerund of verb
My big concern was getting enough sleep.
Fortunately, there are two reliable ways of telling them apart. We can always change a progressive
verb into a simple form. In the case of our example, we can change the past progressive was getting
to the simple past tense got:
Progressive tense:
Simple past:
The cat was getting ready to pounce.
The cat got ready to pounce.
When we try to do the same thing with the gerund, the result is nonsensical:
Gerund:
Simple past:
My big concern was getting enough sleep.
X My big concern got enough sleep.
The other test is the third-person substitution test for gerund phrases. Here is the test applied
to both sentences:
Progressive tense:
Third-person pronoun test:
The cat was getting ready to pounce.
The cat was getting ready to pounce.
it
Clearly, it does not equal getting ready to pounce. When we apply the same test to the gerund
phrase, it makes perfect sense:
Gerund:
Third-person pronoun test:
My big concern was getting enough sleep.
My big concern was getting enough sleep.
it
In this case, it does indeed make sense as a substitute for getting enough sleep.
Exercise 6.3
Each of the following sentences contains a sequence of some form of the verb be followed by a
present participle. Underline each progressive verb or gerund phrase and write progressive or
gerund above it, and then confirm your answer by applying one of the tests discussed previously:
paraphrasing a progressive as a simple tense or replacing a gerund phrase with it.
progressive
The discussion was getting out of hand.
The discussion got out of hand.