Determiners

Determiners and Gerunds 

Determiners are utilized to introduce a noun or noun phrase. 

Determiners are words such as this, those, my, their, which. They are special adjectives that are used before nouns. 

Kinds of determiners:  

• Articles: a/an, the.  
• Demonstratives: this, that, these, those.  
• Possessives: my, our, your, his, her, their, its.  
• Quantifiers: a few, a little, much, many, a lot of, most, some, any, enough.  
• Numbers: one, ten, some, any, many, a few, all, several, each, every, either, neither etc.  
• Distributive: all, both, half, either, neither, each, every, only. 

Gerund is a non-finite verb. It appears as an action word. However, it behaves like a thing. When “verb+ing” functions as a “noun and action word”, it is called a gerund. 

Examples: 

• Swimming is good exercise. (subject) 
• The girls enjoy swimming. (direct object) 
• The best exercise is swimming. (predicate nominative) 
• She was scolded for swimming. (object of a preposition) 
• A gerund phrase consists of a gerund and related words. 

Example: 

• Swimming in the lake is good exercise. 

Functions: 

Subject of the verb

• Swimming is a good exercise. 
• Giving is better than receiving 

Object of a transitive verb

• Stop writing. 
• I like reading poetry. 
• Working is praying. 

Object of a preposition

• I am fond of catching fish. 
• I am tired of writing.