Talk:Verbnoun

Gerund

One thing the article fails to explain is why the term "verbnoun" was coined in the first place. Is there a difference between a "verbnoun" in Celtic languages and a "gerund" in any other language? --Damian Yerrick (talk) 21:40, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

How is this not a bare infinitive? (Or some other form of "infinitive")

The page that linked me to this one said Celtic Languages do not have infinitives, and have these verbnouns instead. However, neither the wikipedia page on infinitive, nor that page explain what is meant by this. (Unless they do it in some far off section I did not get to, while reading.) In Any case, this is the immediate question I wanted answered, when I visited this page, so I think it should be answered here.

Why is the verbnoun not considered the Celtic infinitive? Also, what makes it so different from English's "bare infinitive"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.111.123.163 (talk) 05:34, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

I am not really familiar with Celtic languages, but from what the article said, the main difference is the fact that the verbnoun behaves as a noun in grammatical construct, rather than just a verb. The English infinitive verbs (bare or not) are used as verbs, not nouns, in sentences. But not verbnouns...they are nouns. I hope I understand and explain that concept clearly and correctly. Of course it is best to have someone knowledgeable about this give a three line example, with the first line being a Celtic sentence, then the second line showing a word for word English "literal" translation, and finally a proper English translation will be on third line. I also realize that the English gerund might be closer to the concept of a verbnoun, since a gerund is a noun, as in "Walking is good for you.". There is also another concept called verbal noun, which I am sure is somewhat different than verbnoun. Thanks for raising the issue! --TheBlueWizard (talk) 06:45, 20 January 2018 (UTC)