Sentence Correction

imskpwr wrote:

7777 wrote:

imskpwr wrote:

7777 wrote: gerund doesn't have a progressing aspect. it always serves as a noun.
dogs are being bred for looks.
being bred is not a gerund here.

X is eating Y.
y is being eaten by x. (it is a passive verb)

Dogs(subject) are(linking verb) being bred for looks(gerund).
"being bred for looks" is a Subject Complement: Could be an "adjective"/"Noun"/"Adverb".
The structure clearly indicates that it has to be a Gerund only to fit this slot.
The internals of this gerund is "passive" in itself i.e., "DOGS are Bred for looks by..."
So it is a PASSIVE-GERUND.

BUT it is NOT A GERUND at all(as already written by RON and can be easily verified by a simple test of "the act of"), then the structure of (2) must be similar to (1)&(3), in which "getting" & "running" are PROGRESSIVE VERBs.

"A Man is getting naked in front of the camera"...........(1)
"A Man is being naked in front of the camera".............(2)
" I am Running"...........................................(3)

So it is a "progressive" verb.
CAN SOMEONE PIN POINT A FLAW HERE?

i am not very sure here but i think that

dogs are being bred for looks.
in the above sentence,being bred is not a passive gerund but is a verb.)

i think that all your three sentences are using progressive tense.

he is being stupid. (in this sentence being stupid is not a gerund,but is used as a progressive tense as the present participle of the verb "be")


passive gerunds are made from a "being" or "getting" + past participle

i don't like being hurt.(being hurt is a passive gerund)
i don't like getting hurt.(getting hurt is a passive gerund)

he is being naked.(i think being naked is not a gerund here.it's a progressive tense)= he is getting naked at the moment.

being naked makes me feel good.(here being naked is a gerund)


my hobby is reading(reading is a gerund)
my friend is reading.(reading not a gerund)

Yup!
The sentence "dogs are being bred for looks" is in "progressive tense".
My hobby is "the act of" reading...........logical(it's a gerund)
My friend is "the act of" reading..........illogical("it's not a gerund)

Dogs are "the act of" being bred for looks.........illogical.(so by the same logic, it's not a gerund here)
If not a Gerund, then only feasible option left is "Progressive Tense".

"Gerunds" are Static, but "progressive tenses" are Dynamic

Only issue with this reasoning is:
"Be" is a "State Verb", but it is used in "Dynamic" sense here.....How?
Any comments?

7777 wrote:
i am not sure what are you looking for....

i am tall(linking and stative verb)
it seems hot(linking but not a dynamic verb)
he gets a pizza.(not linking but a dynamic verb)
they are having a conference(linking and dynamic)


"be" is a linking verb.
it could be used in stative sense as in "africa is beautiful"
or in dynamic sense as in "he is having a tantrum"

imskpwr wrote:

7777 wrote:
i am not sure what are you looking for....

i am tall(linking and stative verb)
it seems hot(linking but not a dynamic verb)
he gets a pizza.(not linking but a dynamic verb)
they are having a conference(linking and dynamic)


"be" is a linking verb.
it could be used in stative sense as in "africa is beautiful"
or in dynamic sense as in "he is having a tantrum"

He(subj: pronoun) is(verb: auxiliary verb) having(verb: main verb) a tantrum(noun: object).
I think this sentence is not Grammatically Correct.
"Have" cannot be used in a "dynamic sense" as it is a "state verb".
Instead the preferred version must be: "He has a tantrum."

7777 wrote: gerund doesn't have a progressing aspect. it always serves as a noun.
dogs are being bred for looks.
being bred is not a gerund here.

X is eating Y.
y is being eaten by x. (it is a passive verb)

avik.ch wrote:

7777 wrote: gerund doesn't have a progressing aspect. it always serves as a noun.
dogs are being bred for looks.
being bred is not a gerund here.

X is eating Y.
y is being eaten by x. (it is a passive verb)

Ing verbs do imply time sequence in whatever forms it may be - be it a participle or a gerund. It imply actions taking place at the same time with the other action in the sentence. Gerund and participle are a derived form of a verb, in a sense it looses its grammatical property because of the slot but not its functional property.


Hope this helps !!

lunarpower wrote:examples: (the first one i made up; the other three are correct answers to official problems)

Being followed by paparazzi 24 hours a day has caused many celebrities to become extremely hostile to strangers. (source: i made this up on the spot)
(note that this is both --> it's a passive-voice gerund!)

Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear. (source: gmat prep; also in the OG verbal supplement)
(gerund; not passive)

During the 1950s, as part of their therapy, young polio victims learning to live with their disabilities were helped to practice falling, so that they could learn to fall without being hurt. (source: gmat prep)
(again, passive voice gerund)

According to one expert, the cause of genetic irregularities in many breeds of dog is not so much that dogs are being bred for looks or to meet other narrow criteria as that the breeds have relatively few founding members. (source: gmat prep)
(passive; not gerund)

lunarpower wrote:

vikram4689 wrote:how "being hurt" is passive. i understand that

if someone is hurt, then he/she must have been hurt by someone or something; "hurt" is not a situation that can arise all by itself.

there are other verbs that could potentially be either -- for instance, you could be depressed by something (= passive), or you could just be depressed (= not passive).

the more important point, though, is that there's not much sense in continuing the discussion beyond this point. as i stated above, "being ____ed" has essentially the same grammatical properties regardless of whether it's a passive construction, so it makes no sense to be overly concerned (or, for that matter, to be concerned at all) about the difference.

imskpwr wrote:
OG13 SC128: Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolving as a kind of snorkel.

Here, "elephant is descended from an aquatic animal".
Is this sentence in Passive Voice?
I thought "descended" was an Adjective here. Even, OG says so in its explanation.
Hope you will clear the mist here.

GMATGuruNY wrote:

imskpwr wrote:
OG13 SC128: Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolving as a kind of snorkel.

Here, "elephant is descended from an aquatic animal".
Is this sentence in Passive Voice?
I thought "descended" was an Adjective here. Even, OG says so in its explanation.
Hope you will clear the mist here.

I received a PM asking me to comment.
Here, descended serves as an adjective.
X is descended from Y means that X and Y are connected by a blood relationship.

lunarpower wrote:lol, i have to go back and look up the meaning of "gerund" every single time i encounter one of these posts. i still can't remember the meaning of terms like that, even after looking them up thirty or forty times.

vikram4689 wrote:Being followed by paparazzi 24 hours a day has caused many celebrities to become extremely hostile to strangers. (source: i made this up on the spot)
(note that this is both --> it's a passive-voice gerund!)

Being heavily committed to a course of action, especially one that has worked well in the past, is likely to make an executive miss signs of incipient trouble or misinterpret them when they do appear. (source: gmat prep; also in the OG verbal supplement)
(gerund; not passive)

the good news is that the part you already understand (that ___ing is the subject in these examples) is the only thing that actually matters here.

as far as differentiating between passive and not passive, that's entirely a matter of context.

* if to be ____ed describes an action that was done to someone/something by someone/something else, then that's a passive construction. e.g., this building was destroyed by an earthquake.

* if to be ____ed describes a quality of something/someone, NOT an action that was done to him/her/it/them by someone/something else, then it's not passive -- it's just an adjective that happens to look annoyingly similar to the passive. e.g., this person is committed to doing the best possible job.

sometimes exactly the same word can do either of these things, depending on context.
my boss is dedicated to his work. (not passive)
this plaque is dedicated to the victims of last year. (not passive)
this plaque was dedicated by the mayor in today's ceremony. (passive)

the phone was broken in the accident. (passive)
i can't call you on this phone, because it is broken. (not passive)

this should be sufficient to explain the other questions.

"are + verbing..." is present-progressive tense, so "being bred" is passive. why not "gerund-passive"

if it has a tense, then it's a verb.
if it's a verb, then it's not a noun. "gerund" is a noun, so this is not a gerund.