Теоретическая грамматика английского языка

The perfect foim of the gerund expresses priority. e.g. He told me of her having gone to the South for her holiday. The non-perfect form of the gerund expresses priority after the prepositions on, after: e.g. After reading the book he returned it to the library. and after verbs of recollection, gratitude, blame, reproach, punishment and reward: e.g. I regret telling him about it. The syntactical characteristics: the gerund has the following functions in the sentence: 1) the subject e.g. Reading is useful. 2) a part of compound predicate e.g. Seeing is believing. She went on reading. She stopped smoking (Она остановилась продолжая курить). Note: The infinitive after the verb to stop has the function of the adverbial modifier of purpose. e.g. He stopped to smoke (Он остановился, чтобы покурить). 3) an object e.g. Please, avoid making such mistakes. He insisted on domg the work himself. I am fond of reading. 4) an attribute e.g. Everybody liked the idea of going to the country. 5) an adverbial modifier e.g. On entering the room he came up to me (adverbial modifier of time). You spoiled everything by telling a lie (adverbial modifier of attending circumstances). He left the room without saying a word (adverbial modifier of manner). 6) a part of the complex subject e.g. It's useless your staying there. 7) apart of the complex object e.g. Do you mind my joining you? She objected to my joining them. 8) an attribute e.g. Everyone liked the idea of his joining us. 9) an adverbial modifier e.g. I had a lot of letters frommy friends since their leaving the town. One of the specific gerund patterns is its combination with the noun in the possessive case. e.g. Powell's being rude like that was disgusting. John's coming so late surprised everyone. Will he ever excuse our having interfered? 22