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(gerund phrase as the complement of a preposition) Using gerunds of the appropriate auxiliary verbs, one can form gerund clauses that express perfect aspect and passive voice: Being deceived can make someone feel angry. (passive) Having read the book once before makes me more prepared. (perfect) He is ashamed of having been gambling all night.
(gerund-participial clause with zero preposition complement after at) The building was given a new lease of life. (past-participial clause with zero indirect object) For more examples of such constructions in English, see English passive voice and Uses of English verb forms § Uses of non-finite verbs.
gerund clauses – particularly after want and need, as in Your car wants/needs cleaning (zero object of cleaning), and You want/need your head seeing to (zero complement of to). For details of the uses of such clauses, see § Uses of non-finite constructions below. See also English passive voice (particularly under Additional passive ...
The gerund may also be replaced with a followed by the infinitive in less common verb phrases, such as Ele ficou lá, trabalhando / Ele ficou lá, a trabalhar "He stayed there, working". However, the construction with the gerund is still found in southern and insular Portugal and in Portuguese literature, and it is the rule in Brazil.
The remaining part of the phrase is called the prepositional complement, or sometimes the "object" of the preposition. In English and many other Indo-European languages it takes the form of a noun phrase, such as a noun, pronoun, or gerund, possibly with one or more modifiers. A prepositional phrase can function as an adjective or adverb.
A gerund is a verb form that appears in positions that are usually reserved for nouns. In English, a gerund has the same form as a progressive active participle and so ends in -ing. Gerunds typically appear as subject or object noun phrases or even as the object of a preposition:
Gerund forms are often used as plain verbal nouns, which function grammatically like common nouns (in particular, by being qualified by adjectives rather than adverbs): He did some excellent writing (compare the gerund: He is known for writing excellently). Such verbal nouns can function, for instance, as noun adjuncts, as in a writing desk.
Let's think about solving this problem (complement is a gerund phrase) pour encourager les autres (French: "to encourage the others", complement is an infinitive phrase) The word to when it precedes the infinitive in English is not a preposition, but rather is a grammatical particle outside of any main word class .