This study of gerund evolution in Slovene was prompted by remarks by J. Baudouin de Courtenay & S. Skerlj. Comments are made on the evolution of both Slavic & Romance languages in the context of Slavic-Rhaeto-Romance interactions. The transformation of active participles into gerunds is detailed in It, Friulian, & the Slavic langs. In Slovene, gerunds were more frequent in the sixteenth century than now, & became superceded by infinitives & relative clauses. It is noted that it is difficult to judge actual use patterns based on written texts alone, as the gerund presupposes a structure more complex than that typical of everyday use. A body of gerundial forms in some of the westernmost Slovene dialects was collected by Baudouin de Courtenay & is partially reproduced here. It contains both gerunds in -c & in -e/-je. The former are characterized by three types of syntactic patterns: gerund linked to the subject, gerund as the main O, & gerund in a loan translation from a non-Slovene idiom. It is concluded that the two main syntactic patterns mirror Slavic patterns & that the higher frequency of gerundial forms in It & Rhaeto-Romance account for the existence of a "gerundial habit" in Western Slovene. A. Orianne