Topic: Gerunds & Participles,

Best Answer Explained in Below-:

In the sentence "We enjoyed swimming in the river," the word "swimming" functions as a gerund. A gerund is a verb form that ends in "-ing" and acts as a noun in a sentence. Here, "swimming" represents the activity that the subject "we" enjoyed, thus taking on a nominal role.

To further clarify, gerunds can be used in various ways, such as the subject of a sentence, as a direct object (as in this case), or as objects of prepositions. In this example, "swimming" is the direct object of the verb "enjoyed," indicating what specifically was enjoyed.

In contrast, a participle is a verb form that functions as an adjective, while an infinitive is the base form of a verb preceded by "to" (e.g., "to swim"). Since "swimming" is providing the action of the activity (not describing a noun or acting as an infinitive), it is classified as a gerund. Understanding this distinction is key to identifying the roles of different verb forms in English.