This article determines the frequency of using the elements of construction of the compound nominal predicate “copulative verb + participle” in the publicistic speech. Considering the fact that in the English language participle is divided into two types – participle I (present tense) and the participle II (past tense), the article explores the use of 12 copulative – appear, become, get, go, grow, feel, keep, look, prove, remain, seem, sound in combination with both types of participle. The author also examined the dictionary entries for the verb keep as most controversial in determination of the following infinitive form with the suffix -ing. The article provides the points of view of the linguists noting that the terms “gerund” and “participle I”, inherited from the grammatical tradition are unsuitable, and suggest to consider the infinitive forms (participle I and gerund) as the single -ing form due to somewhat overlap of their functions, homonymity  and difficulty in distinguishing them. Therefore, participle I, as an element following the copulative verb with the suffix –ing is designated in the article as -ing form. Using the methods of continuous sampling and quantitative analysis on the material of the British online news platforms, such as BBC News, The Guardian, The Evening Standard, and The Express, for the period from January 2020 to March 2021, the author established that in the constructions of the compound nominal predicate “copulative verb + -ing form”, "copulative verb + participle II” in the publicistic style texts, the most common copulative verbs are get, keep, feel, become, remain; participle II has the highest frequency as a binding element of the compound nominal predicate. The research involved 200,000 words.