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gerund-like form

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A verbal construction functioning similarly to a gerund, naming an action as a noun-like entity

Detailed Definition
A gerund-like form refers to verb forms or constructions that function nominally while retaining verbal characteristics, allowing them to name actions while preserving some verbal force. In poetic contexts, these forms enable compressed expression by treating processes as entities, creating grammatical flexibility that supports various syntactic arrangements. Gerund-like forms allow poets to balance nominal and verbal qualities, achieving ambiguity or precision as needed while demonstrating language's capacity to blur categorical boundaries. This grammatical flexibility supports various stylistic effects from dense nominalization to dynamic action representation.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” gerund-like form appears in “singing,” “celebrating,” “containing”; In Emily Dickinson, “hoping,” “fearing,” “dying” function as gerund-like forms; In Gertrude Stein’s “Tender Buttons,” gerund-like form creates linguistic flux; In Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen,” “driving,” “walking,” “breathing” become gerund-like acts of survival; In Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” “loving,” “leaving,” “remembering” structure elegy; In Anne Carson’s “The Beauty of the Husband,” “lying,” “crying,” “trying” frame marital dissolution.
Additional Notes
A gerund-like form uses verbals ending in -ing to create fluid, ongoing action—common in free verse to blur boundaries between action and state of being.
Also Known As
Gerundial form Verbal noun construction -ing clause Participial noun phrase Converb construction
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