Noun or non-finite subordinate clause?

Question

Consider the following sentence: > The government wants to encourage understanding of science. Now, "to encourage understanding of science" is a non-finite subordinate clause functioning as an object. What about "understanding of science"? Is that also a non-finite clause? Or is "understanding" considered to be a noun? > Learning is an easy process for some. Here, is "learning" a noun or a non-finite subordinate clause functioning as the subject of the whole clause? I'm inclined to say that "understanding" is a noun, whereas "learning" is a non-finite clause. However, I don't know what this intuition is based on.

Answer 1

"understanding" is a gerund, which is a noun equivalent. In your example, it is the object of "to encourage"

In the second example, "learning" is also a gerund, and it serves as the subject of the sentence.