Locate the gerund phrase and identify its noun use. a popular pastime for retirees is camping near a lake. gerund phrase: noun use:

The gerund phrase in this sentence is camping near a lake. The gerund itself is camping, but as a phrase, it has additional modifiers (near a lake) that describe it. Gerunds and gerund phrases function as nouns in a sentence. So, in this case, its noun use is predicate nominative (predicate noun), that is a noun that completes the predicate by telling us what the subject is.