The COVID 19 pandemic led to an overburdening of the health care systems

Question

I saw a text writing as above, I'm confused in the sentence structure.

Using 'overburden' as a gerund becomes 'adjective' why the article 'an' in this sentence.

OR should i take "overburdening of the local health systems" as a compound noun

Answer 1

In your sentence, there should be an article before 'overburdening', as it is a noun. A gerund is a word formed from a verb which is a noun, not an adjective.

gerund

noun (grammar)

​a noun in the form of the present participle of a verb (that is, ending in -ing) for example 'travelling' in the sentence 'I preferred travelling alone.'

Gerund (Oxford Learner's Dictionaries)