Incorrect: They were counting on me helping them.
Correct: They were counting on my helping them.

Incorrect: They insisted on me resigning the post.
Correct: They insisted on my resigning the post.

Like, love, hate and prefer

The verbs like, love, hate and prefer can be followed by both infinitives and gerunds. There is usually no difference of meaning.

Many verbs can be followed by both infinitives and gerunds. Some verbs can only be followed by infinitives. There are also some verbs which can only be followed by gerunds.

Gerund
A gerund is a verb form which acts like a noun. In English, the gerund ends in –ing. A gerund does have some verbal properties but it turns the entire verb phrase containing it into a noun phrase. Consider the verb read and consider the example ‘I like reading short stories’. Here reading is the gerund form of the verb read. By taking the object ‘short stories’ it exhibits verbal properties. Here the entire verb phrase (a phrase containing a verb) ‘reading short stories’ is a noun phrase functioning as the object of the verb ‘like’.

State whether the –ing forms given in the following sentences are participles or gerunds. In the case of participles, name the noun or pronoun they qualify. In the case of gerunds, state what function they serve in the sentence.

Gerunds are words like reading, writing, singing and running. They are used as nouns. Gerunds are often called verbal nouns because they are formed by adding –ing to a verb. Gerunds are used in several sentence patterns.

Read the sentences given below:

I heard him singing.
Driven by rain, we took shelter under a tree.
It being a small cot, he couldn’t sleep on it.