he will be misunderstood. The listeners will be confused in trying to understand what he means. Perhaps, he will say My brother is wearing a black shirt who is the boy or
A black shirt my brother is wearing who is the boy. If this happens, the listeners will
try very hard to catch his ideas. Like English or other language grammars, Indonesian grammar is also very
important. If someone wants to speak Indonesian, at least he should know the Indonesian grammar in order to make his listeners understand. For instance, Dia
berbaju biru muda is acceptable. The prefix ber- in the word bertopi means memakaiwearing. But Dia membaju biru muda or Dia terbaju biru muda is not
acceptable because the prefix me- and ter- are meaningless in the context. Even though the prefix ber-, me-, and ter- have the same meaning in making a verb, they
are not meaningful in every sentence. From the explanation above; it is clear that grammar is very essential and
important, and also it cannot be separated from the language. Without grammar a language is meaningless and useless.
2.2 Analysis of Gerund
2.2.1 Definition of Gerund
It has been mentioned in the reasons for choosing the topic that both Indonesian and English have some words which have the same meaning but different
in their functions. We often find verbs in English that function as nouns. In
Indonesian there is no change in its forms in making a noun from a verb, but in English we must add the suffix –ing to the word. On the other hand, the –ing form of
a verb is not always a noun. Words derived from a verb stem with the suffix –ing may occur in a variety of
meanings and functions. It depends on the contexts where they occur. The –ing form may be used as verbal nouns and verbal adjectives Zandvort 1972:24.In the first
place, the –ing form may be used as verbal noun that is as nouns with verbal meaning and it is called gerund.
Thus, gerund is a verb –ing functioning as a noun. This –ing form is a part of noun and a part of verb since it is formed from a verb. Meanwhile, gerund phrase is
composed of the gerund and any words organized with it. Like nouns, commonly, gerund may function as subjects, complements and objects. As it is said by Cook and
Suter 1980:191: “Speakers of English will often take a verb form that has an –ing ending and
use it as nouns instead of as a verb. When this happens, the form is called a gerund. We say that a gerund “used” as nouns perform-they act a subjects of
sentences, as direct objects, and as complements. The meanings they communicate, however, are always those of verbs, since gerunds describe
actions states rather than name persons, places, things, or ideas as nouns do.”
In connection with Cook and Sutter’s definition, Zandvoort and Van Ek 1972:25 gave an explanation that a gerund may exhibit all the syntactic properties
of a noun. Thus, it may be preceded by an article, a possessive pronoun, a noun in genitive, or an adjective, or followed by a noun-adjunct with ‘of’ or another
preposition. It may function as the subject, object, nominal predicate of a sentence,
and form part of a prepositional adjunct. They also said in the same page, a gerund may also exhibit the syntactic properties of a verb. Thus, it may be qualified by an
adverb or adverbial phrase, and the case of the transitive verb may also take a subject of its own. It may be used in the perfect tense and in the passive voice.
Related to the explanation above, gerund and its distributions will be described below:
2.2.2 Gerunds as Subjects
