Cooking apples and cleaning ladies

Consider the following sentences:

1. Cooking is my favourite activity.
2. Cooking apples are essential for this recipe.

Cooking functions in the first sentence as a gerund. How does it function in the second?

A similar question could be asked of the term cleaning lady. However, while a cooking apple represents an apple which is (itself) cooked, a cleaning lady represents a lady who cleans (something else). Is there a difference?

Other examples:

• Talking point vs. Watering can
• Reading material vs. Cutting board

Solution 1:

Consider the following sentences (stressed words are boldfaced):

1. Cooking apples is essential for this recipe.
2. Cooking apples are essential for this recipe.

In (1), cooking apples is an example of a gerund subject complement with a (deleted) indefinite subject. As usual in a transitive subjectless clause, the direct object gets stressed. And, of course, noun clauses are always singular, whence the predicate is essential.

In (2), however, cooking apples is an example of a noun phrase with an attributive adjective formed from a participle, modifying apples, and signifying apples intended to be cooked (as opposed -- in my idiolect, anyway -- to eating apples, which are intended to be eaten uncooked). As usual in a contrastive noun phrase, the contrasting adjective is stressed. And of course the plural noun apples takes a plural predicate are essential.

• One main point is that not every -ing word is a gerund.

• Another is that gerunds are really clauses, with subjects (often deleted,
  but still understood), and possibly objects, if the gerund is transitive.

• Still another is that, when pronounced, there is no ambiguity, because they're not the same.

Edit: (added from the comments)

Cooking apples are for cooking, cleaning ladies are for cleaning. The fact that apples is object and ladies is subject gets lost when the compound is made. There are many many different kinds of noun compound; my favorite pair is pony ride vs snake bite.

Solution 2:

A gerund in English is an -ing form of a verb used as a noun. Compare

Cooking is my favorite activity. ... Running is my favorite activity. — The noun is the subject. Cooking apples are essential. ... Running shoes are essential. —The noun is an attributive.

One difficulty here is that gerunds used attributively may have different semantic relationships to the root verb.

1. Running shoes, watering cans, grappling hooks are tools designed for use in the activity — like soccer balls.
2. Cleaning ladies, running crews, teaching assistants are people who perform the activities — like soccer teams.
3. Cooking apples, reading material, riding horses are the objects operated upon by the activity — like soccer coaches.

Another difficulty is that the -ing form also serves as the participle and maybe used as an adjective. In this use it overlaps with the second use of the gerund, and really the only way to distinguish them in any given context is to ask whether the implication is that the modified 'actor' performs the act just once ir performs it habitually:

The running lady bumped into an elderly gentleman.
The running crew are called for 6 pm.

Sometimes, however, both are true:

The cleaning lady picked up her broom.

In this case, a distinctive test is to ask whether you can flip the actor and the modifier and keep the meaning

?The lady cleaning the room picked up her broom? ‐ probably not; that's a different kind of 'lady'.
?The lady running down the street bumped into an elderly gentleman? — probably; that's the same kind of lady.

Solution 3:

It’s helpful to distinguish form and function in these cases. Perhaps in an attempt to do so, grammarians, in describing the former, seem increasingly to refer to ‘the –ing form of the verb’, rather than using terms like gerund or verbal noun. No one can dispute that that is what it is, and it leaves the way clear for an examination of the function.

This form of the verb can perform verbal, nominal and adjectival functions. In your first example, cooking is, as you say, a noun, functioning as the subject of is. In the second, it’s an adjective, modifying apples.

If we speak or hear of a cleaning lady, we know that cleaning is an adjective because, if for no other reason, cleaning and lady quite often collocate in this way. It is hard to think of circumstances in which we would want to use a cleaning lady to describe a woman who was actually engaged in household cleansing duties at the time of speaking. In other words, a cleaning lady is a lady who cleans, and not a lady who is cleaning.

In your other examples, the -ing forms are also adjectives. They are, however, a little different, in that we can’t say that they describe an X that does something rather than an X that is doing something. They do neither. A talking point doesn’t talk, reading material don’t read, a cutting board doesn’t cut and a watering can doesn’t . . . Ah. Well, yes, a watering can does water, but the point is that it doesn’t water of its own accord. It’s a can for watering, just as a cutting board is a board for cutting.

In these cases, ambiguity is unlikely. The ‘Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English’ points out that ambiguity with the use of ‘-ing’ form can nevertheless arise when it follows a main verb (Is it a noun or a verb?), when it modifies a following noun (Is it a noun or an adjective?) and where it follows the verb be without other modifiers (Is it a verb or an adjective?).