The English -ing Form

The English -ing form, also called (verbal) gerund, is often believed to display a mixture of verbal and nominal properties, thus posing problems for any theory of grammar. I will argue that this is actually not the case for every construction involving the -ing form, but only for two distinct subclasses, -ing forms after genitive subjects and after determiners like no or any. In the other cases, which are the majority of all cases, the -ing form only displays verbal properties. I show that tests traditionally considered to show nominal properties work for clausal phrases as well. Therefore, these tests have to be dismissed. A simple analysis is then proposed for the -ing form with accusative and null subject, as these forms do not display a mixture of properties.