Originally Posted By: goofy
Originally Posted By: Faldage
Except that when it's a gerund it's not a verb anymore. It's a noun.


It's not a noun, though. It has some properties of a verb (it can have a subject and object), and it has some properties of a noun (it can function as a subject or object).

For instance
I enjoy eating cakes.

eating has an object, cakes, and nouns don't have objects, verbs do. Also, if eating was a noun here, then I should be able to replace it with another noun. But I can't.

*I enjoy consumption cakes.


But eating cakes is the object of the verb enjoy and verbs don't take verbs as their object.