Nominal Gerunds Research Articles

Korpuslinguistische Perspektiven auf die sprachhistorische Entwicklung der nominalisierten Infinitive im Deutschen

Nominalized infinitives (NIs, such as (das) Lachen ‘(the) laughing’, (das) Um-die-Ecke-Wohnen lit. ʻ(the) around-the-corner-living’) are the morphologically most elaborated deverbal nominalization patterns without restrictions in present-day German. However, this was not the case in earlier stages of German. The article reconstructs the steps behind the increase in productivity of the NI since Old High German with the support of historical corpora from Old High, Middle High, Early New High, and present-day German. It will be shown that the increase in productivity is due to an interplay of morphology and syntax. Syntactically, NIs develop from the verbal infinitive together with a syncretism with the pre-Old High German nominal gerund. Morphologically, NIs replace -ung-derived nouns in order to form abstract nouns in Middle High German. In a further step, the morphological complexity of NIs increases, because syntagmata are nominalized, including the emergence of synthetic compounds. In a reverse development taking place from Middle High German onwards, nominalized infinitives can also get result-readings which coincides with pluralizability (such as das Schreiben ‘letter’ – die Schreiben ‘letters’).

Competing motivations in the diachronic nominalization of English gerunds

AbstractThe present study is an in-depth, corpus-based analysis of the rise and institutionalization of the indefinite nominal gerund in Late Modern English, considering the observed developments in light of their interactions with functionally related constructions. Based on historical data taken from the Corpus of Late Modern English Texts (version 3.1), we argue that the rise of indefinite nominal gerunds constitutes an instance ofdiachronic nominalization, in which the nominal gerund over time gradually comes to exploit a fuller range of paradigmatic properties associated with the nominal class. At the same time, this study investigates the potential influence ofisomorphismon the observed developments. While the results do support the frequently investigated claim that language systems have a (weak) preference for a one-form-one-meaning organization in later stages of their development, the initial emergence of indefinite nominal gerunds can more accurately be explained by allowingsystem pressureas an enabling force of linguistic innovation. The picture presented in this study serves as evidence that the long-term development of linguistic constructions can be the result ofcompeting –even maximally opposite –forces.

Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English

The point of departure of this paper is the claim by Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle (2019) that the suffix -ing has no aspectual meaning in English gerunds. Rather, the interpretation of nominal and verbal gerunds depends, so they argue, on situation or viewpoint aspect, a claim that contradicts the wide-spread view that the aspectual meaning of English gerunds is brought about by the nominalizing suffix. The present paper addresses the issue from a comparative perspective, focusing on German ung-nominals: while they share aspectual features with their English counterparts, empirical evidence from productivity, distribution, and argument linking shows (i) that the derivational suffix -ung imposes aspectual restrictions on possible verb bases, and (ii) that with respect to argument linking, the deverbal nominal favors the state component of a complex event predicate over its process component. From the historical record of German, we learn that these aspectual restrictions do not hold for ung-nominals in earlier periods of German. With the rise of aspectual restrictions, the nominalization pattern turns more nominal resulting in a position further towards the nominal end of the deverbalization continuum. It appears, then, that it is only in the historical pariods of German that ung-nominals pattern with English nominals as regards their aspectual features. Currently, German ung-nominals are more noun-like than nominal (and verbal) gerunds in English.

Nominal and verbal gerunds in present-day English: aspectual features and nominal status

In this paper, we want to add to the comparative description of Present-day English nominal and verbal gerundive nominalizations, by presenting the results of a quantitative, corpus-based analysis of their aspectual features. It will be shown that, in general, the claim that gerunds designate unbounded activities or activities that are in progress cannot be upheld—because a significant number of both nominal and verbal gerunds denote non-durative situations (achievements, semelfactives) or telic ones (accomplishments), and because most gerunds lack explicit markers of ‘completeness’ or ‘ongoingness’. As regards the distinction between nominal and verbal gerunds, it will be shown that nominal gerunds denote activities significantly more often and are more likely to occur in contexts which are explicitly marked for temporal bounding or for ongoingness. Verbal gerunds, on the other hand, represent significantly more often achievements or semelfactives and occur more often than nominal gerunds in neutral or unmarked contexts in terms of temporal bounding. These findings are shown to tie in with a number of recent functional-semantic accounts of the English gerund and shed new light on the categorial gradience between nominal and verbal gerunds.

Is there a pluralia tantum subcategory of nominal gerunds? Developing Gaeta's notion of morphological differentiation

Inspired by Gaeta's study of morphological distinctiveness as the basis for category formation, this article considers the possibility that by virtue of their invariable suffix -ings English pluralia tantum nominal gerunds (PTNGs) such as surroundings can be regarded as a subcategory of nominal gerunds. It is shown that the set of PTNGs is semantically very disparate with regard to the verb that underwent nominalization in the course of their formation. Differences are observed in a very large corpus with regard to the quantifiers and other items that co-occur with PTNGs, namely quantifiers regularly associated with plural count (e.g. many) or with mass nouns (e.g. much), but there is too much variability among PTNGs for the totality of them to be a candidate for category status.

Usage-based perspectives on diachronic morphology: A mixed-methods approach towards English ing-nominals

AbstractThis paper illustrates how different methodological approaches can be combined to reveal complex patterns of constructional variation and change in the diachronic development of Englishing-nominals. More specifically, we argue that approaching the data from a schema-based (rather than morpheme-based) perspective shows that nominal gerunds in English, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, have undergone a semantic drift towards more “nouny” construal variants. This hypothesis is supported not only by raw frequency counts, but also by association measures and by a detailed analysis of hapax legomena.

From nominal to verbal gerunds

This paper provides a detailed comparison of the referential behaviour of noun phrases and nominal and verbal gerunds from Middle to Late Modern English. It will be shown that in earlier stages of English, nominal and verbal gerunds to a large extent resemble prototypical noun phrases in their referential functioning, but also exhibit ‘non-nominal’ uses that depend on clausal rather than nominal grounding strategies. It is argued that the study of (diachronic changes in) the semantic and functional behaviour of nominal and verbal gerunds in Middle and Modern English should take into account that these are functionally hybrid constructions, showing referential traits of both prototypical noun phrases and clauses. This functional hybridity, then, was gradually sorted out, with nominal gerunds specializing to nominal reference and verbal gerunds continuing to adhere to the functional apparatus associated with subordinate clauses.

Indefinite Nominal Gerunds, or the Particularization of a Reified Event

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on nominal gerunds that combine verb-like semantics with the use of an indefinite article, as in Such reflection enables [a sharing of understandings]. The indefinite article in constructions like these is at first sight irreconcilable with the uncount status of the nominal gerund, and this gerund type has therefore tended to be either neglected or reduced to fully lexicalized (count) nouns. We argue that the use of the indefinite article is functionally motivated but cannot be captured in traditional referential categories, indefinite nominal gerunds being either specific, non-specific or generic and locating their referents in spatio-temporal, virtual or generic space. Instead, it is suggested, indefinite nominal gerunds impose a more schematic type of conceptualization on the event that is reified, that is they conceptualize it as a delineated event. The “particularized”, well-delineated event that indefinite nominal gerunds profile, it is shown, is either viewed directly, as a second-order entity, or the perspective that is taken is third-order, conceptualizing the event as an “idea”, “problem” or so forth. The delineation imposed by the indefinite article can be contextually supported by the syntactic function assumed by the indefinite nominal gerund, and/or through the use of lexical items.

How do gerunds conceptualize events? A diachronic study

AbstractThis article offers a cognitive perspective on the evolution of the semantics of English nominal gerunds (NG) (I regret the signing of the contract) and verbal gerunds (VG) (I regret signing the contract). While the formal differences between NGs and VGs are well documented, their semantics remains largely unexplored territory. The perspective that is taken here is centered on the linguistic notion of reference and various aspects of the conceptualization involved in it. As they formally hover between more nominal and more clause-like internal properties, gerunds form an interesting test case for the cognitive perspective on referentiality. Our corpus analysis describes how the situations that NGs and VGs refer to are conceptualized as deictic expressions grounded in the speech event in Present-day English, and how this has changed since the Early Modern period. It is shown that only a multi-layered model of referentiality can account for the subtle differences found between NGs and VGs: while no fundamental shifts are found with regard to the traditional referential subtypes (specific, non-specific, generic), NGs and VGs do turn out to differ in their choice for either nominal or clausal grounding mechanisms, in their status as existentially stable or flexible entities and in the mental spaces in which they situate the events that they conceptualize.

What It Means to Verbalize

The English gerund system consists of two types of gerunds: a nominal gerund ( the learning of a language), and a verbal gerund that developed out of the nominal gerund ( learning a language). While the formal aspects of this diachronic verbalization of the gerund are well documented, much remains to be said about the discourse-functional side of the change. In this paper, it is argued that the formal verbalization of the gerund is accompanied by an important change in the discourse-functional organization of the gerund system. Based on functional characterizations of noun phrase (NP) behavior in the literature, the prototypical behavior of complex NPs is operationalized as (i) functioning as manipulable discourse participants that are important enough in the following discourse to be susceptible to anaphoric targeting and (ii) being inaccessible to anaphoric targeting of internal participants. The results of an analysis of a set of nominal gerunds, verbal gerunds and ‘regular’ complex NPs covering the period 1640–1914 (taken from the Penn Parsed Corpora of Early Modern and Modern British English) shows that the increasingly clause-like appearance of the verbal gerund is in fact accompanied by atypical NP behavior. Moreover, the paper makes clear that the changes in the discourse-functional organization of the gerund system did not only affect the verbal gerund, but also had some implications for the nominal gerund. These findings shed new light on the (diachronic) processes of verbalization and nominalization, and on what they mean on a discourse-functional level.

Nominal vs. Verbal -ing Constructions and the Development of the English Progressive

In this paper, I examine nominal and verbal - ing forms in English and discuss aspects of their historical development. In particular, I investigate certain differences between verbal and nominal gerunds in comparison with the present participle with respect to what I call here gradience in verbal traits . I put forward the following hypothesis. Diachronically, the nominal component of both nominal and verbal gerunds relates to the nominal origin of both forms, namely an Old English derived nominal in - ung/-ing . The 'more verbal' component of the verbal gerund relates to certain aspects of the diachronic development of the English progressive. The changes in the development of the progressive in fact resulted in the emergence of the verbal gerund with parallel continuation of the Old English nominal in - ung/-ing and the Old English participle. After reviewing the development of English progressive, I will present diachronic and synchronic evidence that the original nominal pattern of the progressive acquired verbal traits. I will then show how this influenced the development of the two gerund types. I will then turn to a structural analysis of the constructions under investigation, which can be summarized as follows: synchronically, the gradience in verbal traits is accounted for on the basis of variation in the internal functional structure of the elements under investigation. On this view, the presence of verbal characteristics is linked to the presence of certain structural layers standardly associated with verbal clauses. Deverbal formations split into several subtypes depending on the number and the type of the layers these contain. This is expressed within a system that views word/category formation as a result of processes operating in specific syntactic structures, which contain the root as the minimal element that enters word formation (Alexiadou 2001, Alexiadou, Iordachioaia & Soare 2010, Borer 2013, Embick 2010, Marantz 1997, and others).

Functional motivations in the development of nominal and verbal gerunds in Middle and Early Modern English

This article examines the use of three gerund constructions in Middle and Early Modern English on the basis of corpus data covering the period 1250–1640. The constructions examined are verbal gerunds (eating the apple), bare nominal gerunds (eating of the apple), and definite nominal gerunds (the eating of the apple). It is argued that the success of verbal gerunds in the history of English can only be understood against the background of the interaction with their nominal counterparts. An analysis is offered of how the system of gerund constructions is functionally organised, comparing discourse-functional behaviour, distribution, and internal syntax across the three gerund types. It is shown that verbal gerunds closely resemble bare nominal gerunds in terms of discourse-functional behaviour and distribution, but are syntactically more flexible. As a result, verbal gerunds could replace bare nominal gerunds, copying their function but adding syntactic flexibility. By contrast, definite nominal gerunds, being functionally distinct from the other two types, developed a number of specialised uses, which ensured their survival. These conclusions throw light on issues of functional motivation in the development of the English gerund. Historical change is seen to be grounded in synchronic functional organisation. At the same time, it is shown that the only existing explanation for the rise of verbal gerunds (attributing their success to their ability to combine with prepositions) can only be partly correct.

Nominal gerunds in 16th-century English. The function of the definite article

Nominal gerunds in 16th-century English. The function of the definite article

Nominal gerund phrases in English as phrasal zero derivations

L'A. montre que, contrairement a la croyance commune, l'affixe -ing dans les syntagmes nominaux anglais ne fonctionne pas comme un element nominalisant. Afin de rendre compte du fait que d'une part, lorsqu'il est utilise dans des nominalisations deverbales lexicales, le verbe en -ing se comporte morphologiquement comme un nom, et que d'autre part, le meme element est utilise dans les nominalisations lexicales et syntagmatiques, l'A. propose que les deux types de nominalisation soient issus d'une derivation zero a partir des projections de la forme du participe present du verbe. Des donnees translinguistiques sur la nominalisation deverbale lui permettent en outre d'appuyer son propos

English nominal gerund phrases as noun phrases with verb-phrase heads

La notion de tete de syntagme en syntaxe. Analyse du syntagme gerondif nominal en anglais dans le cadre de la grammaire syntagmatique generalisee