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30 votes
Gerund in the sentence "Our baseball team is playing out of town this week."

User Afiq Johari
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1 Answer

25 votes
25 votes

Answer:

You won't want to believe me, but this sentence has no gerund. Let's see if I can convince you of this.

Step-by-step explanation:

You might be fooled into thinking that 'playing' is a gerund, but in your example, 'playing' (together with 'is') form the present continuous tense as a verb expressing an ACTION performed by the team.

A gerund always functions as a noun (in either subject or object position), which is a THING.

Look at my example to make the comparison.

My favorite activity is playing baseball.

In my example, 'is' is a linking verb, connecting my favorite activity to the THING I like, which is playing (baseball).

Imagine if you said:

'I like writing essays.' (Writing is the THING you like.) That's no different from saying simply: 'I like pizza,' where pizza is the THING you like. 'Writing' is just as much a thing (a noun) as 'pizza' is. In your example, on the other hand, 'playing' is not a thing that the baseball team is. Instead, 'playing' is something that the baseball team does.

subject verb (an action)

Our baseball team is playing out of town this week.

subject verb object (a noun - a thing)

My favorite activity is playing baseball.

Hope that helps.

User NorthCat
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