as a subject
The subject of the sentence is who or what the sentence is about. Most of the time in simple sentences like this one, the subject is at the beginning of the sentence. A gerund is a verb that acts like a noun and ends in -ing.
Direct objects receive the action of the verb. This sentence does not have an action verb so it does not have a direct object. The indirect object receives the direct object. For example. I gave Jack the ball. Ball is the direct object because it receives the action "gave". I also think about it in terms of what do I touch first if I'm going to do the action. Then the indirect object is Jack because he receives the ball. He is where I'd go to second. An appositive is a noun that renames or describes another noun. It is usually set off by commas. For example, Jack, my brother, took the ball. My brother is the appositive because it is renaming or describing who Jack is.
Answer:
The answer is letter D. as a subject.
Explanation:
Gerunds are words formed by adding -ing to verbs. Even though they look like verbs, they behave like nouns, having the same functions nouns have in a sentence. A gerund can, for example, function as the subject of a sentence.
The subject of a sentence is what the sentence is about, the topic of the sentence.
Taking the information above into consideration, and also the fact that the only gerund in the sentence "Hiking is a pleasant activity" is the word "hiking", we can safely say that the gerund functions as a subject.
Hiking is what the sentence is about. Everything that comes after it has the purpose of giving us information about hiking. We get to know that hiking is an activity. We get to know not only that it is activity, but also that it is a pleasant one. We could dissect the sentence in the following way:
- Hiking --> subject
- is --> third-person singular liking verb
- a pleasant activity --> subject complement
