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The Modern English-ing ending, which is used to form both gerunds and present participles of verbs (i.e. in noun and adjective uses), derives from two different historical suffixes. The gerund (noun) use comes from Middle English-ing, which is from Old English-ing, -ung (suffixes forming nouns from verbs).
(The present participle and gerund forms of verbs, ending in -ing, are always regular. In English, these are used as verbs, adjectives, and nouns.) In the case of modal verbs the present and preterite forms are listed, since these are the only forms that exist with the present form identical for all persons.
In some weak verbs ending in a final -t or -d, this final consonant coalesced with the weak past ending to leave a single -t or -d in the past forms. Some verbs ending in l or n had their past ending irregularly devoiced to -t, and in a few verbs ending with a v or z sound (leave, lose), both
Verbs ending in a consonant plus o also typically add -es: veto → vetoes. Verbs ending in a consonant plus y add -es after changing the y to an i: cry → cries. In terms of pronunciation, the ending is pronounced as / ɪ z / after sibilants (as in lurches), as / s / after voiceless consonants other than sibilants (as in makes), and as / z ...
In addition, the COBUILD team identifies four groups of verbs followed by -ing forms that are hard to class as objects. In the verb + -ing object construction the action or state expressed by the verb can be separated from the action or state expressed by the -ing form. In the following groups, the senses are inseparable, jointly expressing a ...
The present participle/gerund is formed by adding -ing, again with the application of certain spelling rules similar to those that apply with -ed. The irregular verbs of English are described and listed in the article English irregular verbs (for a more extensive list, see List of English irregular verbs). In the case of these:
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Most verbs have three or four inflected forms in addition to the base form: a third-person singular present tense form in -(e)s (writes, botches), a present participle and gerund form in -ing (writing), a past tense (wrote), and – though often identical to the past tense form – a past participle (written).