1. INFINITIVES AND –ING FORMS
María Irene Albers de Urriola
MA in Applied Linguistics
Specialist in Computer Technology in Education
2. DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS OF -ING
Besides having a main verb, many sentences have gerunds.
They may be the subject of the sentence:
Being your friend is the best thing ever happened to me.
As part of the present or past continuous:
They are celebrating Valentine’s Day.
The object of a preposition:
People shouldn’t drive after drinking alcohol.
Subject complement of the verb to be:
Her love is reading
Direct object of some verbs:
Francisco enjoys having lunch with his friends.
Indirect object of the verb give:
John gives swimming all his energy
Adjective:
They all go to their reading class.
3. DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS OF -ING
-ing follows busy and worth.
She is busy preparing her dissertation.
Some other adjectives when followed by a
preposition + -ing, refer to a more general feeling.
In the link that follows, you’ll find a list of adjectives which
take the gerund after a preposition: http://www.englisch-
hilfen.de/en/grammar/gerund_prepositions_adjectives.ht
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Some nouns are followed by a preposition + -ing or
simply -ing.
There is no success in being lazy.
4. DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS OF -ING
Verbs like accuse (someone) of; condemn,
criticize, forgive, punish, thank (someone) for
; discourage, prevent, stop (someone) from;
congratulate (someone) on; stop; apologize
for; suspect (someone) of; blame (someone)
for; take the –ing form.
Don’t blame me for telling him.
