Background of the Study

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1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Humans, as social creature, cannot live on their own without others; they need to communicate with other people to help them fulfill their needs. Even the richest person in the world cannot survive without a poor farmer who plants rice in his field. Humans also need to share their feelings and emotions like happiness and sadness. In communicating with each other, humans use a communication tool which we call language. So we can say that language plays the main role in interaction between humans. Trager 1949:23 says that a language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which the members of society interact in terms of their total culture. Yet another definition sees language as a system of communication that enables humans to exchange verbal or symbolic utterances. This definition stresses the social functions of language and the fact that humans use it to express themselves and to manipulate objects in their environment. Functional theories of grammar explain grammatical structures by their communicative functions, and understand the grammatical structures of language to be the result of an adaptive process by which grammar was tailored to serve the communicative needs of its users. Coghill and Magendanz 2003:16 say, The grammar of a language is the set of rules that govern its structure. Grammar determines how words are arranged toform meaningful units. 2 Gerund is one of grammars parts. Betty 1992:368 says that gerund is the —ing form of verb used as noun. The English gerund ends in -ing as in I enjoy playing basketball. The same verb form also serves as the English present participle which has an adjectival or adverbial function and as a pure verbal noun. Thus the -ing form in the English language can function as a noun, verb, adjective or sometimes adverb; in certain sentences the distinction can be arbitrary. Gerund is the form that names the action of the verb for instance, playing is the action of to play. In some cases, a noun ending in -ing sometimes serves as a gerund as in Ilike building 1 like building things, I like painting 1 like painting pictures, and I like writing 1 like writing novels, while at other times serving as a non-gerund indicating the product resulting from an action as in Iwork in that building, That is a good painting, and Her writing is good. The latter case can often be distinguished by the presence of a determiner before the noun, such as that, a, or her in these examples. A gerund behaves as a verb within a clause so that it may be modified by an adverb or have an object; but the resulting clause as a whole sometimes consisting of only one word, the gerund itself functions as a noun within the larger sentence. For example, consider the sentence Eating this cake is easy. Here the gerund is the verb eating, which takes an object this cake. The entireclause eating this cake is then used as a noun, which in this case serves as the subject of the larger sentence. An item such as eating this cake in the foregoing example is an example of a non-finite verb phrase; however, because phrases of this type do not require a subject, it is also a complete clause. 3 Traditionally such an item would be referred to as a phrase, but in modern linguistics it has become common to call it a clause. A gerund clause such as this is one of the types of non-finite clause. Gerund has become a confusing part of grammar for students who study in English Program for it has many forms and functions and complicated uses. For those who learn or analyze gerund, they would find a complex problem such as how and when gerund is used and what the functions of a gerund in a sentence are. Moreover, it is not only gerund using the -ing formed verb in grammar; there are also present participle which uses the same form but has different meaning. This results one more dilemma: how do we distinguish them? Gerund has four types: simple gerund, perfect gerund, active gerund, and passive gerund. And there are seven functions of gerund: as subject, as object, as complement, as apposition, after possessive case, after certain idiomatic expression, and to show short prohibition. Since gerund plays an important role in English, we can always find it in many different writings which one of them is Mark Twains novel The adventures of Huckleberry Finn which was first published on December 1884. For examples: 1 Its something they give mefor learningmy lesson good.→Gerund as object of preposition 2 Laying on o hands is my best holt.→ Gerund as subject 3 We slid the raft intohiding quartersfor the day.→ Gerund ascomplement 4 Thinks I, this is what comes ofmy not thinking.→ Gerund after possessive adjective. 5 I gets up,a-wondering,and goes down stairs.→ Gerund asapposition. 4 Based on short explanation above, the writer is interested in raising gerund as the topic and takes Twains novel as the data source. This paper gives a brief description about definition, form, and function of gerund found in the novel.

1.2 Problem of the Study