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Infinitive and Gerund
The history of the development of Infinitive and Gerund consists in continuous process of likening to Verb though they appeared in language as nominal units. Infinitive and Gerund convey a generalized idea of action, and the connection with the doer of action is supported only logically, but isn't expressed by formal means. Infinitive and Gerund have verbal and nominal features. Verbal features are manifested by the categories of tense and aspect, ability to accept a non-prepositional object and to be defined by adverbial modifiers. Nominal lines are manifested in their syntactic functions.
The main formal sign of Gerund is its ability to be used with prepositions. The main formal sign of Infinitive is particle to. Syntactically Infinitive gravitates to Verb, though keeps the properties of nonverbal parts of speech. The gerund, on the contrary, expands the positions of nonverbal parts of speech, but still gravitates to Verb. Nevertheless, Gerund has more properties of Noun, than Infinitive.
Since 2000, the frequency of use of Gerund has grown, and it is more frequently used in functions of adverbial modifiers, object and attribute. Infinitive tends to be more rare used in functions of adverbial modifiers and subject, yielding these positions to Gerund.