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There are a variety of circumstances where a verb after another one has “-ing”
THE VARIETY OF POSSIBILITIES
A verb ending with -ing may be an adjective-like “participle” or a noun-like “gerund” (see 71. Gerund and Participle Uses of “-ing”). Either of these forms may combine closely with a verb placed just before them. They can do so in various ways, of which the main ones may be illustrated as follows:
(a) Doctors recommend taking a daily walk.
(b) Doctors foresee children becoming more obese.
(c) Children enjoy hearing (or adults telling) stories.
(d) Children like hearing (or adults telling) stories.
(e) Children can help friends struggling to learn.
(f) Parents should go walking with their children.
(g) A recommended form of exercise is walking.
In (a) here, taking directly follows the verb recommend and is understood as its grammatical object, making it noun-like and hence a gerund. In (b), becoming is separated from the verb foresee by the noun children, the gerund’s subject. Sentence (c) illustrates a verb (enjoy) that can go either directly before an -ing object (hearing) or before an intervening noun (adults telling). In the latter case, both words are the object but the primary meaning is still with the gerund (see 232. Verbs with an Object + “-ing”).
Sentence (d) above is similar to (c), but it illustrates a verb (like) that allows a following -ing verb (hearing, telling) to be replaced by a to (infinitive) verb carrying a slightly different meaning (to hear, to tell).
In (e), struggling follows the verb help and its noun object friends. Unlike in (b) and (c), however, this noun is the primary word in the object – it is only friends that receive the mentioned help, not their struggles. Thus, struggling is merely a description of the type of friends involved, making it adjective-like and hence a participle.
In (f), walking cannot be the object of go before it (because GO is an intransitive verb), but is instead a participle describing the subject of go (parents). In (g), walking is a complement of the verb BE, exactly identifying a recommended form of exercise, the subject of BE (see 117. Restating Generalizations More Specifically, #1). As such, it is a gerund.
The above sentences do not illustrate every possible way in which an -ing verb can follow another verb. One major excluded type is BE + participle, as in Children are playing. It is excluded because the participle is not sufficiently separate from BE, acting instead in partnership with it to make a single verb form, the present continuous tense of WALK. The other major excluded type is what I call “add-on” participles, which are not closely linked to the main verb in the sentence, but describe its subject, like this:
(h) The research ANALYSED markets PAYING particular attention to prices.
Here, the subject of paying is not markets, the object of analysed, but the research, its subject. For discussion of sentences like this, see 101. Add-on Participles.
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VERBS ASSOCIATED WITH EACH TYPE
1. Verbs like RECOMMEND
There seem to be relatively few verbs after which an -ing verb is always an object/gerund without an intervening noun, as in (a). Common ones are ADVISE, CONSIDER (= decide whether to perform the -ing action), DENY, RECOMMEND, REGRET, REJECT, RESUME and SUGGEST. Of these, ADVISE is most able to have a noun before a following verb, but the verb then needs to be changed into the to form (see 250. Synonym Pairs with Contrasting Grammar 1, #3).
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2. Verbs like FORESEE
Adding a noun before an -ing object, as in (b), is usually necessary after some cause-effect verbs of the prepositional kind, e.g. CONTRIBUTE TO, HOPE FOR, LEAD TO, LONG FOR, RESULT IN (see 32. Expressing Consequences) and WARN OF, plus a small number of other verbs, including DEMONSTRATE (= “present”), DISCOVER (= accidentally encounter”), FORECAST, FORESEE, PREDICT and SHOW (= “present”).
3. Verbs like ENJOY
Ability to be used equally with or without a noun before an -ing gerund is probably the most commonly found. Common verbs possessing it include ACCEPT, ANTICIPATE, APPRECIATE, AVOID, CATCH (= “observe … acting secretly”), ENDURE, ENJOY, ENTAIL, ENVISAGE, HINDER, IMAGINE, INSIST ON, INVOLVE, KEEP, LOOK FORWARD TO, MEAN (= entail), (NOT) MIND, MODEL, NECESSITATE, OBSERVE, PHOTOGRAPH, PREVENT, RECORD, RISK, STOP, STUDY and THINK OF (= picture).
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4. Verbs like LIKE
Verbs that can link with either -ing or to… after them, giving each a different meaning without changing themselves, are of two main types. With the more common, -ing (Children like hearing…) draws attention to its verb’s action through time, whereas an infinitive (Children like to hear…) presents the action as more instantaneous.
Verbs that can make this contrast fall into three meaning groups. LIKE is a like/dislike verb. Similar are LONG FOR, LOVE, PREFER, WANT, YEARN FOR and HATE. However, not all like/ dislike verbs allow the to/-ing choice: only -ing is possible after APPRECIATE, APPROVE OF, DISLIKE, ENJOY, WELCOME, ABHOR, DETEST, DISAGREE WITH and LOATH (see 10. Words with Unexpected Grammar 1, #b). Underlined verbs in both lists can also link with it that… (see 190. Special Uses of “it”, #4).
Next among verbs allowing the above -ing/to… choice are a few that express sensation. Examples are FEEL, HEAR, LISTEN TO, NOTICE, SEE, SENSE, SMELL and WATCH. With these, the choice is better said to involve an “infinitive” than a to verb because to must be dropped (see 148. Infinitive Verbs without “to”, #2).
The third choice-allowing group express dependency, with verbs like COUNT ON, DEPEND ON, NEED, RELY ON and REQUIRE. Outside of these three areas, HAVE meaning “cause” also allows the -ing/infinitive choice, the latter again without to (see the end of 116. Rarer Uses of HAVE).
The second broad type of verb that can link with a following verb ending in either -ing or to… also requires the choice to be made according to an aspect of the following verb’s meaning – but not the aspect outlined above.
The verbs FORGET and REMEMBER, for example, need -ing with past remembered events and to with future ones. They allow an intervening noun in the first case but not the second. BEGIN, CEASE and CONTINUE allow either –ing or to…, without any intervening noun. Often, there is no meaning difference, but sometimes there seems to be association with either a single extended action or multiple repeated ones.
TRY needs -ing to imply experimentation with a behaviour, and to… to imply that a preferred behaviour is being attempted with effort that may fail. PROPOSE means “suggest” with -ing and “intend” with to…. OMIT means “not mention” with -ing and “not do” with to…. For more on such distinctions, see 302. Verbs with a Partner Infinitive, #2.
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5. Verbs with an “-ing” Participle
Any verb that can have a noun object is likely to be usable with a subsequent -ing participle, as in (e) above. Some verbs, such as HELP in (e), will not allow an -ing gerund instead, but some will. With the latter, a double meaning sometimes occurs. Consider this:
(i) Some experiments involve animals suffering pain.
If suffering here is a participle, the message is that suffering pain is not the focus of some experiments. Rather, the type of animals involved in the experiments – those already suffering pain – is being specified. By contrast, if suffering here is a gerund, the message is that animal pain is induced during the experiments (see 257. Structures with a Double Meaning 4, #2).
6. Verbs like GO
GO is unusual in allowing a following -ing participle without an intervening noun. The noun it describes is instead the subject of the GO verb. Its most typical meaning in such cases is “go out to enjoy…”. Commonly-used participles are driving, hiking, hunting, riding, running, shopping, swimming, visiting and walking (see 176. Ways of Using “Go”, #3).
Similar to GO -ing are COME -ing (see 290. Ways of Using COME), and TAKE someone -ing (see 264. Variations in the Use of TAKE, #17).
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7. Verbs like BE
As mentioned above, BE may combine with an -ing participle to make a standard present continuous tense form. However, if the meaning does not fit this interpretation, as in sentence (g), an -ing form is likely to be a gerund (for a particularly interesting example, see 69. How Computers Get Grammar Wrong 2, sentence #b).
The reason for the existence of two possibilities after BE is that it is a verb typically needing a “complement”, a sentence component that may be either adjective-like, opening the way for participles, or noun-like, opening the way for gerunds (see 220. Features of Complements, #2).
Different complement-taking verbs have different requirements. REMAIN is very like BE, but BECOME and SEEM are unlikely to have a following participle (preferring a noun or adjective instead). TURN is unlikely to have either a participle or gerund, normally preferring an adjective. Some complement-taking verbs, moreover, including BE and BECOME, allow a noun before a partner -ing word:
(j) The saddest sight was children begging for food.
In these cases, the distinction between a participle and gerund seems blurred.
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