0

Is “ferrying” in the following passage a gerund or a present participle?

In March 2016, Zipline, a U.S. startup partnered with the Rwandan government to launch the world’s first commercial drone delivery service, ferrying vital medical supplies to far-flung hospitals by air. Since October of that year, the company has dispatched more than 7,000 units of blood products to 21 hospitals, … (TIME, May 31, 2018; https://time.com/longform/ziplines-drones-are-saving-lives/ )

If it is a participle, I think, it will make up a reduced participle clause, with the subject being “the world’s first commercial drone delivery service”. In which case, the clause may be rewritten as “which ferries vital medical supplies …”; present tense “ferries” is made necessary by the next sentence saying the service is still going on; however, tense disagreement between “ferries” and the main clause verb “partnered” concerns me.

Or, “ferrying” is a gerund?

Improve this question
8
  • 1
    The writer wrote ferrying precisely to avoid which ferries, which is heavy. and breaks up the flow of the sentence. The writer also could have said: *to ferry vital medical supplies to*[wherever]. You can always form sentences from this participles: Ferrying medical supplies to x is dangerous.
    – Lambie
    Feb 14, 2022 at 21:24
  • Ferrying in your quote acts as a participle verb, not a gerundy noun.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Feb 14, 2022 at 22:38
  • Two sentences with the same subject can be combined by reducing one sentence to a participle clause. So: Zipline partnered with the Rwandan government to launch [a] drone delivery service. + Zipline ferried vital medical supplies to far-flung hospitals by air. = Zipline partnered with the Rwandan government to launch [a] drone delivery service, ferrying vital medical supplies to far-flung hospitals by air. (Ferrying is a participle.)
    – Tinfoil Hat
    Feb 15, 2022 at 0:54
  • It does not matter what it is. The fact is that it avoids which ferries.
    – Lambie
    Feb 15, 2022 at 1:00
  • @Lambie: No — there is no nonrestrictive reduced relative clause involved here.
    – Tinfoil Hat
    Feb 15, 2022 at 2:37

0

Reset to default

Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.