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For instance, there are the sentences "Reading books is good" and "To be a hero is your duty."

Could I say that books and "hero" are objects of the verbs reading and To be, and that together( verb and object) act as a noun, more specifically, as the subject of both sentences?

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    Intransitive verbs, including copular ones like be, don't have objects; sometimes they have certain kinds of nominal (NP) complements, though. It's the clause that's the subject; there are no "acting nouns" here. I've updated your question's tags in the hope that these will better draw answers.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Nov 26, 2023 at 23:40
  • Thanks for seeing my question, but about the clause being the subject, that is the reason to why they have to be in the gerund or infinitive form, right? And about the first sentence, Could I say that "books" is the object of "reading" even though gerunds are verbs that act as a noun? Oh, and thanks for correcting me about the verb "to be" not having an object, instead, an NP.
    – The_Soul_Eater
    Commented Nov 26, 2023 at 23:56
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    I'm trying to understand why a verb's object or complement might somehow be called something different when the verb is nonfinite compared to when it's finite. That would be confusing.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Nov 27, 2023 at 0:02
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    Yes and no: "reading books" and "to be a hero" are the subjects of the sentences, and "books" is the object of "reading". But "hero" is not an object: "be" is always intransitive, so it's predicative complement. Note that the subjects are not nouns but clauses.
    – BillJ
    Commented Nov 27, 2023 at 7:57

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In a comment, BillJ wrote:

Yes and no: "reading books" and "to be a hero" are the subjects of the sentences, and "books" is the object of "reading". But "hero" is not an object: "be" is always intransitive, so it's predicative complement. Note that the subjects are not nouns but clauses.

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