Syntactic and pragmatic characteristics of gerund constructions in British mass media online

The article deals with the syntactic and pragmatic characteristics of gerundial constructions in British mass media. The material for the research includes the online versions of quality press such as The Guardian, The Economist and The Week. The methods are determined by the goals of the research. The main methods are the mass sampling method, the method of contextual analysis and the method of cognitive-discursive analysis. The research proves that gerund is a polyfunctional unit and combines verbal and substantive aspects. Functions in the sentence performed be gerundial forms are determined by their collocability, syntactic context and functions of the discourse under consideration. The results of the research show that the dynamic nature and functional opportunities of gerundial constructions allow achieving complex communicative goals of mass media.