Deterrent against that person "repeating" the crime, why " repeat" gets "ing"
Hello everyone,

I've got doubts whether "against " would be the reason which makes the verb "repeating ",since it doesn't come immediately after that. As we know that after prepositions the gerund is used.

The whole sentence is:
Putting a young offender in prison is not an effective deterrent against that person repeating the crime.

Thanks in advance for your enlightening answers.It seems it's a complicated question; it's been viewed by more than fifty people and it's been only Micheal Chambers yet who has been able to cope with it!

Question

Deterrent against that person "repeating" the crime, why " repeat" gets "ing"
Hello everyone,

I've got doubts whether "against " would be the reason which makes the verb "repeating ",since it doesn't come immediately after that. As we know that after prepositions the gerund is used.

The whole sentence is: 
Putting a young offender in prison is not an effective deterrent against that person repeating the crime.

Thanks in advance for your enlightening answers.It seems it's a complicated question; it's been viewed by more than fifty people and it's been only Micheal Chambers yet who has been able to cope with it!

Answer

In this sentence, the noun phrase which comes with "against" is "that person repeating the crime".  This noun phrase is a gerund phrase.

When a gerund phrase starts with the gerund (e.g. I avoid cycling on the motorway), the subject of both verbs is the same.

When a gerund phrase starts with a person or other noun, then that thing is the subject of the verb in the gerund but the object of the first verb e.g. I stopped my son cycling on the motorway.

This construction does not appear in other languages, to my knowledge, and so I recommend that you practise using it until it feels natural.

Answers · 1

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