The Late ME period witnessed the growth of a new verbal known in modern grammars as the Gerund. The Gerund can be traced to three sources: the OE verbal noun in – unZ and inZ, thePresent Participle and the Infinitive. In ME the Present Participle and the verbal noun became identical: they both ended in – ing. This led to the confusion of some of their features: verbal nouns began to take direct objects, like participles and Infinitives. This verbal feature – a direct object – as well as the frequent absence of article before the – ing form functioning as a noun – transformed the verbal noun into a Gerund in the modern understanding of the term. The dissappearence of the inflected infinitive contributed to the change, as some of its functions were taken over by the Gerund. The earliest instances of a verbal noun resembling a Gerund date from 12th c. Chaucer uses the – ing – form in substantival functions in object. In Early NE the – ing form in the function of a noun is commonly used with an adverbial modifier and with a direct object – in case of transitive verbs. The nominal features, retained from the verbal noun, were its syntactic functions and the ability to be modified by a possessive pronoun or a noun in the G.case. In the course of time the sphere of the usage of the Gerund grew: it replaced the Infinitive and the Participle in many adverbial functions; its great advantage was that it could be used with various prepositions.
