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My question is - what part of the speech does "submitting" belong to in the following statement:
I have finished submitting my assignment.
Note: I am aware that this is a poorly constructed sentence and it would have been better to say "I have submitted my assignment" but I want to improve my understanding of concepts like gerunds and participles and was wondering if "submitting" played the role of participle here, qualifying the noun (my assignment).
That is a gerund/participle, and heads the phrase "submitting my assignment". I this case you could categorise it as a gerund, and an object of "finish", or you can classify "finish" as one of those verbs (eg enjoy, hate, remember) that can be complemented by a participle phrase.
Thus it is probably better to simply say that in modern English, gerunds and present participles have merged to give a single type "gerund/participle"
Either way, "my assignment" is the object of "submitting"
If you had said "my submitting assignment", that would be a modifier of "assignment", but it would have the very odd meaning of "my assignment that submits". Since only people (or animals?) can submit that would be a very odd phrase. "My submitted assignment" is better, as it means "my assignment that (someone, I) have submitted"
