Functions of Gerundial constructions in Newspaper style

participial adjective “The show was entertaining.”

Although Sidney Greenbaum’s Oxford English Grammar is another grammar book that employs a common term “-ing participle” denoting both the gerund and the present participle, the traditional understanding and usage of the gerund is described as well:

“The gerund is an –ing participle that shares characteristics of a noun and a verb. “Finding” is a gerund in “It depends on Algeria’s finding more efficient ways to run its factories”. Like a noun it is preceded by a genitive (Algeria’s) that is dependent on it, but like a verb it takes a direct object (finding more efficient ways to run its factories). The genitive is often replaced by a noun in the common case (Algeria). In the same context, possessive pronouns (their in their finding) are often replaced by pronouns in the objective case (them finding)”.
Further, it is mentioned that the traditional gerund occurs with adjectives and nouns that take –ing participle complementation which typically follows a preposition. Many gerundial constructions are classified as factual clauses, as in: “I remember learning French” where they refer to a certain situation existing in past. In such cases, the gerundial constructions are replaceable by a finite clause, usually a that‑clause: “I remember that I learned French” ⁴
Unlike the previous grammars which are focused more on structural description and classifying of the grammatical constructions, the LGSWE attempts to shed more light rather on their real usage in written and spoken contexts. By adopting a corpus-based approach, using the Longman Spoken and Written English Corpus, the LGSWE aims to gain new adequate information about the actual language use in a “data-intensive” way that has not been possible until recently. A corpus is defined as “a large collection of spoken and written texts, stored electronically and searchable by computer, organized by register and coded for other discourse considerations” (Biber 4). A corpus makes it feasible to investigate the linguistic patterns of structure, on which the grammatical descriptions are based and thus offers new ways of describing and analyzing the English grammar.
The section discussing clausal grammar classifies non-finite clauses into infinitive clauses, ing-clauses and ed-clauses. The ing-complement clauses perform several syntactic roles (Biber 199-200):

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  subject or extraposed subject: a)“Having fever is pleasant, vacant.” b) “Anyway I says [sic] to Alice it’s not fair getting in somebody’s car feeling the way I feel I says [sic] – and puking in car.”
  
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  subject predicative: “The real problem is getting something done about the cheap imports.”
  
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  direct object: “I started thinking about Christmas.”
  
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  prepositional object: “No-one could rely on his going to bed early last night.”
  
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