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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
Generally, the only inflected forms of an English verb are a third person singular present tense form ending in -s, a past tense (also called preterite), a past participle (which may be the same as the past tense), and a form ending in -ing that serves as a present participle and gerund.
In traditional grammars of English, the term gerund labels an important use of the form of the verb ending in -ing (for details of its formation and spelling, see English verbs). Other important uses are termed participle (used adjectivally or adverbially), and as a pure verbal noun.
The simple past or past simple, sometimes also called the preterite, consists of the bare past tense of the verb (ending in -ed for regular verbs, and formed in various ways for irregular ones, with the following spelling rules for regular verbs: verbs ending in -e add only –d to the end (e.g. live – lived, not *liveed), verbs ending in -y ...
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).
(The verbs lay and pay, however, are commonly listed as irregular, despite being regular in pronunciation – their past forms have the anomalous spellings laid and paid.) The present participle/gerund is formed by adding -ing, again with the application of certain spelling rules similar to those that apply with -ed.