Hi, Anton Shepelev!   
   I read your message from  30.01.2017 00:17   
   about Rio again.   
      
    AK>> IMHO it means that the Gerund governs the next noun directly   
    AK>> without a preposition.   
      
    AS> No. They say "govern", not "directly govern." Whereas someone takes   
    AS> the means, the verb "take" must needs govern "means", indifferently   
    AS> of the way this relation is expressed.   
      
   Well, my textbook says that a gerund has a direct object (without   
   preposition).   
      
    AK>> As I understand it, a gerund (as a form of a verb) must take the   
    AK>> same direct object as a pure verb. Examples:   
      
    AK>> They loaded the ship. (a pure verb). They started loading the   
    AK>> ship. ( a gerund)   
      
    AS> I agree that your second sentence has a gerund, but I also insist   
    AS> that   
    AS> The loading of this ship took two days.   
      
      
   No. All gerunds can have time forms and active or passive voices. In my   
   example:   
      
   "Being loaded the ship sunk".   
   "Having been loaded the ship sunk"   
      
   In your example you have an "ing" noun and you cannot do any of this kind.   
      
   BTW, a gerund can be defined by an ADVERB:   
      
   After loading the ship quickly they had a rest.   
      
   If you use "the" with a word you cannot add an adverb to it.   
      
    AS> has a gerund too, for the transitive verb "load" governs "ship."   
    AS> Note that the gerund of the form   
      
    AS> the V-ing of noun   
      
    AS> is only possible with transitive verbs, which shows unambiguously   
    AS> that the verb governs the noun, e.g. "the barking of the dog" is   
    AS> not a gerund, while "the feeding of that dog" is!   
      
   IMHO in the first phrase barking == bark (a noun). In the second phrase   
   it should be "feeding that dog".   
      
      
    AK>> "The taking of means not to see another morning had all day   
    AK>> absorbed every energy." -- can you retell it in other words? Maybe   
    AK>> we have here a kind of bad scanning?   
      
    AS> That the correct sentence from "The Widow Werther" by Maria Gowen   
    AS> Brooks. She sought death before moring.   
      
   A strange choice for pupils studying English. ;=)   
      
      
    AS> Can you answer my question from the previous post:   
    AS>> Another way to look at it is that they are verbs in nouns'   
    AS>> disguise.   
      
   They have some verb properties (time forms, voices), but they have also some   
   noun properties (gerund can be a subject, for instance).   
      
    AS>> For example, in "the production of cars" the noun "cars" is   
    AS>> governed by the verb "produce". The preposition "of" denotes not   
    AS>> posession but government, cf. "the tail of the cat." The tail   
    AS>> belongs to the cat, but production does not belong to cars. In   
    AS>> what terms do you explain this distinction if you don't accept   
    AS>> mine?   
      
   As Ardith IMHO would say to you, in "the production of cars" "cars" is the   
   object of the preposition "of".   
      
   And I saw many times that English Grammar often is not very logical from the   
   Russian point of view. Take for instance the English articles. ;) (or take for   
   instance English articles) ;=)   
      
   Bye, Anton!   
   Alexander Koryagin   
   ENGLISH_TUTOR 2017   
      
   --- Paul's Win98SE VirtualBox   
    * Origin: Quinn's Post - Maryborough, Queensland, OZ (3:640/384)