In Chapter 31vwe spoke of the Bolinger principle, which says that gerunds tend to depict events which are “hypothetical, future, and unfulfilled.” As it turns out, gerungs–especially those with possessive subjects–and infinitives pattern to a large extent along the facctive–nonfactive dimension as well. The use of gerunds in subject position, for example, involves a presumption that the event event asserted in the gerund is true; if the event is asserted not (yet) to have occurred, the sentence is slightly odd: