Gerund

That wouldn't be a gerund. 'Crying' would only be a noun if this were an appositive phrase. "Was crying" would be a participle.

I undersatnd that crying is a participle , but what kind of participles .Is it past ?, because past participle would be cried .I guess.

It is the '-ing' form used in past continuous, Navi. Here it is called a 'present participle'. I think it is better to forget the sometimes misleading words 'gerund' (a holdover from Latin) and 'participle' anyway, and use the phrase '-ing form used as a noun/adjective/continuous verb/etc.'

A past participle I think can only be used with transitive verbs, because it's also passive... like, "it was taken" or "it was caused".

As far as I know, there are three things that English uses -ing for:

- present participle - "she was crying", "they were sleeping" etc. "was <verb>ing" is treated as a verb.

- verbal noun - "running is fun", "sleeping is relaxing" "<verb>ing" is treated as a noun.

- ???? - "a shining star" "<verb>ing is treated as an adjective."

That's about as much as I ever bothered to learn.

Thanks