can you tell me the sentense structure of this sentence of "it's the big upside to your wife's dying." what part is the word "dying"?

Question

Dear english native speaker,thank you for answering my question.i found a sentence that i dont quite undertand grammatically while watching modern family S4 E24.that is "it's the big upside to your wife's dying".is there anyone who can analyze the structure?

It=subject.Is=copula .the big upside=predicative. to your wife's dying is attribute clause. did I analyze right? what part is the word "dying" in this sentence?is it used as present participle or gerund？

pls give me the correct answer! thank you!

Answer 1

I would say that it is used as a present participle more so than a gerund. A gerund would be a verb that, when adding "ing" to the end, would turn the word into somewhat more of a noun than a verb.



A present participle would be just the verb having the "ing" added to it.



In this instance if you think it through in the context of the sentence, adding the "ing" does not make the word more of a noun, it keeps it as a present participle, the noun remains the wife, and the verb (action) is dying.

Answer 2

The 'to your wife's dying' is a prepositional phrase modifying the noun 'upside.' 'Dying' is definitely a gerund; it's the object of the preposition 'to.' The use of 'wife's' is correct. Gerunds are nouns - they cannot be modified by other nouns. Nouns (and pronouns) modifying gerunds are correctly put in possessive form.