(These are called gerund-participial clauses by Huddleston and Pullum they do not distinguish gerund clauses from participle clauses, and we don't need to do so here either.) This is an -ing clause, so the adjective done can take it as a complement. There are other times when both light ( take a shower) and heavy verbs are possible ( shower), but this is not one of them. In English, we sometimes use light verbs with nouns like homework because they have no verb form: *homeworking is not an established English verb, so it's not an option. Instead, the bulk of the meaning comes from the noun homework (which is semantically 'heavy'). In this clause, we have the light verb do, which adds very little meaning of its own. You appear to understand this already, so I won't spend too much time explaining its meaning, but in terms of grammar the key is that done can take a following -ing clause as a complement. Done and doing close together might be confusing, but each has a grammatical role in this sentence.Īs you wrote, done here is an adjective indicating the completion of an activity.

I do my homework in the