Craig,
I think I understand your position, but find some of your arguments faulty, in one way or another.
The disregard for pronunciation can be irritating and may lead to overgeneralizations. You have not addressed my distinct pronunciation of the ending between the adjective and noun interpretations of the -ing form, maybe because it has not been established
as to its extent or importance for grammar. I did mention its historical roots. In this regard we have the difference between "house" as a noun and "house" as a verb. As a verb the sibilant is voiced. Surely this distinction extends to your dialect and
can be found in other noun-verb pairs: bath, bathe; cloth, clothe; half, halve. Perhaps some would like here to disregard the historical pressure as well. Yet there is a pronunced difference. The noun-verb distinction in homographs made by the change of
stress, is not as often ignored, maybe because it is so obvious.
It is easy to argue that the phrases "pencil s.t. in" and "elbow one's way into" are marked as verbs by their use as the main part of a phrasal verb. The grammar of phrasal verbs is not mentioned in the 1889 grammar I cited, but is the main topic of A.
P. Cowie & R. Mackin , Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English, vol. 1 (OUP, 1975). They have a two-page list of noun forms, but only -ing forms of phrasal verbs that they find are "outpouring" and "upbringing." Neither of these verbs have a participle
form with the prefix. When we use the forms "pouring out" and "bringing up" they seem to have a much more literal denotation.
The clause "how you do it" does not assert as would "you do it somehow." It has been nominalized on the adverb "how" to serve as an indefinite noun clause. The finite predicate "do it somehow" cannot predicate as an adverb now in its new noun environment.
I suspect that the test for clause that you mention must ignore all such noun clauses. Certainly the indefinite noun clause in "I don't know what you do" does not predicate in your sense either. The presence of a finite verb (sometimes not obvious) in a
clause usually seems pretty clear. The complements to perception verbs that include verbal nouns do indeed look like non-finite clauses. Their subject is now an object and their predicate a verbal noun with complement(s).
Your proposal to distinguish the term gerund to refer only to those nouns that bring along verbal syntax is probalby a good direction to go. Those that are clearly nouns by having adjective modification are also not problematic. The problem is that they
are "verbal nouns" only in the sense that they are derived from verbs. They share the same noun-forming suffix as the gerund. The discussion seemed to be about the decision that must be made by judging their potential to do one or the other: where which
one is in a given pattern may be unclear. I must admit that I may have caused some confusion on this issue.
Bruce
I want to say, first of all, that I have a lot of respect for your knowledge of language and the passion you bring to the subject. I sometimes ask questions not just because I’m not sure of what you are saying, but because I’m sure that there’s substance
behind it. I feel comfortable disagreeing because I know you will take my views seriously and respond in kind. It occurred to me a few posts back that some people may be unaware of the history of our interaction, which, in my eyes at least, has been very
positive. I’m glad that we are able to find substantial areas of agreement in the process.
I am not against terminology. And I certainly don’t believe syntax should be thought of as independent of discourse and meaning. I just believe that the term “gerund” has not been useful. I’m not alone in that. In Langacker’s 500 plus page
Cognitive Grammar (2008), for example, the term doesn’t show up. It’s not a matter of whether we use terms, but of which terms are most useful.
One point I was trying to make, but very awkwardly, is that we don’t routinely have new terms for words when they cross over into other functions. Nouns, for example, are commonly used as verbs and even pick up fairly entrenched verb meanings over time.
We table and chair and house and fence and stone and
face all the time, but we don’t have a term for that or for nouns that are being used as verbs in early stages. (“reverse gerunds”?) I can
pencil something in or elbow my way into a room. The lack of a term for that hasn’t hurt us.
I think we run into problems by having such a gap between phrase and
clause. What we have, quite often, are phrase complexes, (phrases that include other phrases). I can appreciate the desire to limit the term “clause” to elements that have the potential to be sentences. That would generally mean having subject and predicate
and having finite grounding. Traditional grammar has always finessed this a bit by describing commands as having an “implied subject.” Most grammars have a category for “subordinate clauses,” which have a role in another clause. “How you do it” does not
predicate anything, but meets the test of clause in most grammars. (“I don’t know how you do it.”) Traditional grammar recognizes the “absolute,” but calls it a phrase even though it has an explicit subject and predicate and lacks only the finite. It seems
to me that perception verbs take as complements structures that are very much like that: “I saw the boat slam into the dock.” “I watched the captain leave the sinking ship.” In a similar way, speech act verbs take whole clauses as complements, though those
carry the finite. “She said she would be there.” Either you expand the term phrase to include elements that are very clause like, or you expand the term clause to include structures that lack elements of the prototypical (main or independent) clause. I’m
not sure you are eroding the notion of clause when you do that. These are very rough categories, either way.
Here’s how I experience the problem of “gerund” in my daily teaching, for example in teaching an undergraduate grammar class, which I am doing now. I am actually very happy when I have students with some grounding in traditional grammar, but they tend
to reduce the “subject” of a sentence to the head of the group. “Several raucous birds woke me up early.” They are trained to think of the subject of that sentence as “birds.” One reason for that, I suspect, is that it helps with subject/verb agreement decisions.
“Eating too much cheese isn’t healthy.” The subject of that sentence, by the same logic, is “eating,” and since “eating” is subject, it must be a noun, which would make it a “gerund.” But then, what do we do with “too much cheese?” Does it modify “eating”?
To me, it’s easier to say that the whole word group acts as subject, and eating is not a noun, but a transitive verb, taking “too much cheese” as its complement. It is, in fact, identical in structure to “eating too much cheese” in the sentence “anyone
eating too much cheese is hurting their health.” It doesn’t make sense to me to say that “eating” is a noun just because the clause like structure it heads is in a noun phrase role. If you want to use the term “gerund,” you need to define it more carefully
than that, perhaps by limiting its use to ‘-ing forms that clearly act as the head of a noun phrase. “His excessive eating is ruining his health.” In this case, it makes sense to treat “eating” like a noun and makes sense to say it is being “modified” by
“excessive.” The term ‘gerund,” as understood by the few students I teach who have some background in traditional grammar, tends to obscure these distinctions.
If I were to use the term “gerund,” I would restrict it to those instances in which the word in question can be diagramed as the head of a noun phrase. ‘Excessive eating” would fit, but “eating excessively” would not.
I find this conversation useful and hope that some people on the list have followed along and have found it productive.
Craig
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Bruce Despain [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 7:27 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Philosophy of grammatical analysis (Gerund phrase v. gerund--grammar question continued)
Craig,
Except for the last two paragraphs, I couldn't agree with you more. I do however disagree that terminology is dispensible. The syntax brings with it a good amount of semantics and is central to the interpretation of the the ambiguity that arises in language.
The semantics brought with the context of the discourse, helps to clarify the ambiguity. We have to be able to talk about these differences, not just point out that there is a difference. I mentioned that my speech habits distinguish the gerund from the
participle, and Herb has mentioned that there is a historical difference. It seems for me to be an accident of history that the two suffixes have the same orthography. I also remember the difficulty in discussions about the perfect participle: the fact that
the spelling of that form for regular verbs was the same as that for the past tense form caused some consternation, being obviously intentionally ignored by some. Without such terms as these the teacher would be forever giving examples. We all like to take
advantage of ambiguity (puns, and many other figures) in our writing. In fact, it might be argued that ambiguity is the most obvious sign of creativity in writing. I am simply of the opinion that being able to point out the amiguity that comes from parsing
the syntax of various constructions and being able to see the differences diagrammatically, can enable students to utilize the language better for creative purposes.
The term "non-finite clause" is for me self-contradictory. Clauses need to be defined so as to require subject and predicate. However, because there is so much ellipsis of certain syntactic elements on some clausal constructions, this definition has
been eroded away. The use of ellipsis for analytic purposes should be principled, or terms for many other such constructions will erode away. Some of this can be justified due to the evolution of language, but I have yet to see that this is the case with
the "non-finite clause." (In the meantime I read the expression as "gerundial phrase," etc. as appropriate, and think I understand.)
I do hope that the number of listserve participants does not continue to decrease every time we have a disagreement.
Bruce
I find these responses very interesting. I hope the rest of the list isn’t getting frustrated.
As you know, the verb plus ing after a be verb auxiliary is quite often ambiguous. “Interesting” is certainly most likely an adjective in the instance you give, but if I
give an example like “she is sleeping” or “she is painting,” I think most people would see these (is sleeping, is painting) are present progressive verb phrases. This is pretty much my point: that the ing form of the verb has a single name (participle)
but carries out a number of functions. Adjective is one of them.
This is true to some extent in noun phrases as well. I have a friend whose first novel is titled “Dreaming maples.” In this case, “dreaming” could be a transitive verb taking
“maples” as its object. It could be an intransitive verb, denoting the maples as dreaming. It could also tell us what kind of maples we are dealing with; in this case, maples that are suitable for dreaming. We don’t have that ambiguity with “sinking,” but
a “fishing boat” could be a boat that is doing some fishing (in the process of fishing) or a boat that can be classified as a boat suitable for fishing, which would make “fishing” much more noun like in the way it acts. Context might decide it. In the case
of my friend, she was perfectly happy to have a number of meanings available with her title.
Within systemic functional linguistics (I’m not sure about others), perception verbs are thought of as taking subject bearing clauses as their object. In “I saw the ship
sinking” or “I saw the ship sink,” they would treat “the ship sinking” and “the ship sink” as subject bearing nonfinite clauses. The verb would be very much a verb. That might be clearer in cases where the predicate is long enough for explicit verb complements:
“I saw the ship ram the dock and sink slowly into the harbor.” For more cognitive verbs, the structure would be equally clause like, but with the finite added. “I believe the ship was sinking.” “I thought the ship sank.” I don’t see anything to be gained
by thinking of these as adjectives, though context can pressure that. “Which car did you see?” “I saw the car sitting in the driveway.” “What did you see the car doing?” “I saw the car sitting in the driveway.” The same sort of ambiguity can be present.
There are two ways of looking at the hybrid structures sometimes generated by the possessive. “His leaving the ship bothered me.” One is that “his” helps us locate the
missing subject for the following clause. The other is that “his” helps us determine which leaving the ship is in focus. (I’m certainly not bothered by the fact that the passengers left.) One construes what follows as clause, the other as a bit noun like.
It is a bit hybrid as a structure.
You notice, though, that I have gotten this far without using the term “gerund.” I am simply talking about the different ways in which the –ing form of the verb behaves
within discourse and the ambiguity that sometimes results. Does a term like” gerund” add anything to this? Usually it’s defined as a verb acting like a noun, but what does acting like a noun mean and what do we do when it only partly acts like a noun in some
contexts? One frequent area of confusion is the clause like structure in a role like subject. “Stealing that pie got him into trouble.” To me, “Stealing that pie” is a nonfinite clause containing a transitive verb. The same would be true with “the guy stealing
that pie is my brother.” The nonfinite clause has a different role within the sentence, but its internal structure remains the same.
We can continue to call a noun a noun even when it is in a modifying role in a noun phrase or even acting adverbially. “He left yesterday.” We don’t need to give it
a different name for each of its functions. To me, it seems easier to talk about the present participle form of the verb and the various ways it acts within discourse.
Craig
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