Do these two sentences use the possessive case of gerunds properly?
Gerunds have proven to be adequate forms of "annoyances" to me and have thus led me to inquire their properties and uses. I would appreciate it if anyone could provide me with assistance in this predicament.
Do both of these sentences make sense? Explanations are valued.
My absence at the dinner party was due to my playing chess with a colleague.
My absence at the dinner party was due to my playing of chess with a colleague.
Solution 1:
The version "my playing chess" has the gerund "playing" and the direct object "chess". This is okay, since a gerund is a verb, and a transitive verb like "play" can take a direct object.
The second version, "my playing of chess", may be acceptable (it doesn't sound as good to me), but it's not a gerund. The fact that the logical object "chess" is preceded by "of" indicates that "playing" is a noun. This is what happens to logical objects of nouns, since grammatically, nouns cannot take direct objects. "Chess" has to be converted to a prepositional phrase because of this grammatical requirement. (Compare the verb "father" with the direct object "a son" and the noun "father" with the prepositional object "of a son".)
So, since in "playing of chess", the "playing" is a noun, it can't be a gerund (which is a verb form). This doesn't mean there is anything wrong with it, because there is a derivational suffix "-ing" which creates nouns from verbs, so "playing" may be a noun created by the addition of this suffix to the verb "play".
From the Wikipedia article on Gerunds:
- I like playing football. (playing takes an object, so is a gerund)
- Her playing of the Bach fugues was inspiring. (playing takes a prepositional phrase rather than an object; not a gerund)