Question

What is the difference between participles and gerunds

Answer 1

Participles:

• Always function as adjectives, adding description to the sentence.
• If the participle is present, it will dependably end in -ing.
• A regular past participle will end in a consistent -ed.

Examples:

• "The horse trotting up to the fence hopes that you have an apple or carrot."
• "The water drained slowly in the pipe clogged with dog hair"

Gerunds:

• Always function as nouns, so they will be subjects, subject complements, or objects in the the sentence.
• CANNOT be a verb
• Ends in -ing.

Examples:

• "Lily hates waking up to the buzz of the alarm clock."
• "While we were walking on the beach, CJ jumped over the jellyfish that had washed ashore."