Bruce,
I didn’t mean to imply that present participle headed clauses are the only non-finite clauses. I would include past participle clauses and infinitive constructions as well. We can classify these as nonfinite because their verb phrases are not finitely grounded, which means they don’t function as a main clause. They are clause like in structure, meaning they take verb complements and modifiers and occasionally carry explicit subjects. Both infinitive clauses and present participle clauses have more than one function, including slipping into NP slots. We don’t have a different name for the infinitive when it heads a structure that fills a NP slot than we have for an infinitive that functions adverbially or adjectivally. (“To save for college was his motivation for working.” “To save for college, he worked after school.” “He had a need to save for college.”) I would say that taking “gerund’ out of the mix and calling these nonfinite clauses that can take on different syntactic roles is at least an attempt to avoid confusion.
It would seem to me that gerund as currently used confuses structure and function in unhelpful ways. Diane Hacker’s Writer’s reference, for example, (6th edition) says that participial phrases “always function as adjectives” and gerund phrases “always function as nouns” without admitting that the same construction can be one or the other in differing contexts. “Protesting the policy was a mistake. The students protesting the policy did more harm than good.”) You can’t say that “protesting the policy” is always a noun or always an adjective. As with so many grammar books, the only way she gets away with it is by limiting the examples.
Take gerund out of the mix, and it is easier to point out the obvious fact that the same structure can have different functions.
When the present participle heads a noun phrase, it acts differently. Again, that sort of statement allows us to attend to a difference in the internal structure of the word group apart from the way it functions within its discourse context.
Craig
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce Despain
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2014 10:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Gerunds into participles -- this time it's right!
Dicks question, I believe, has to do with selection restrictions. In (1) the prepositional particle to introduces a form of the indirect object of paying money (DO) and is indeed the students (persons) who happen to be in the process of shoveling the sidewalk (he paid them money). In (2) the object is an event and object to selects for it as its prepositional object (PO) (he objected to it). The noun phrase object looks for all the world to be headed by a noun (gerund) form of the verb with its complement retained.
Craig's suggestion that these are both instances of "non-finite clauses" can be confusing, since there are such grammatical structures called small clauses (infinitive phrases marked with to that like the gerund are also a noun form of the verb), and indirect predicates that might reasonably be called by that name. I've already expressed my feelings, that the gerund construction in English was borrowed from a similar structure in Latin. Its interpretation and parse often interferes, I believe, with that of the imperfect participle, and should be avoided when there is confusion or awkwardness.
Bruce
--- [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: "Hancock, Craig G" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Gerunds into participles -- this time it's right!
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2014 14:20:57 +0000
Dick,
I would deal with it as a subject bearing nonfinite clause, but it’s not as clear as you assume if we think of it in context. “He objected to students shoveling his driveway. They were supposed to use the snow blower.” “He objected to students shoveling his driveway. They were supposed to shovel the sidewalk.” “He objected to students shoveling his driveway. They were supposed to shovel his neighbor’s.” All these, of course, would be intoned differently if spoken in order to confer emphasis on the part of the process he is objecting to. The written form leaves it ambiguous.
The easiest way to insure the meaning you give is to make it passive, something that’s hard to talk about if you think of this as a phrase. “He objected to his driveway being shoveled by students. It should have been done by professionals.” This puts students in the default position for emphasis.
The tendency for so long has been to deal with grammar as involving what happens between the capital and the end stop punctuation. What we learned from that narrow focus is valuable, but hard to apply to real world contexts. We end up arguing about what’s grammatical or correct. Without an orientation toward text, it’s hard to discuss what’s effective. That’s a secondary comment, but it comes out of my writing projects of the moment.
Craig
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dick Veit
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 6:42 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Gerunds into participles -- this time it's right!
Michael asks, "So in parsing such sentences, do we consider the -ing words to be participles modifying the preceding noun?" The answer is sometimes but not always. The last four words of the following two sentences don't have the same structure:
1. He paid money to students shoveling his driveway.
2. He objects to students shoveling his driveway.
In 1, "students" is an object noun modified by a participle (he paid money to students). In 2, however, he doesn't object to students but to the shoveling by students. I'd be interested to hear others' take on the structure of sentence 2.
Dick
On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 3:59 PM, Hancock, Craig G <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Karl,
I think we agree on the underlying dynamics but routinely use the terms in different ways.
To me, "taking" in "taking a direct object" is head of a nonfinite clause. The whole structure acts as subject.
This allows us to treat "taking a direct object" as the same structure when it takes on different function, as in "Any verb taking a direct object is transitive".
We get to say that a nonfinite clause can act in NP slots and can also act (in this last case) as restrictive modifier.
We could say "with a nonfinite clause headed by present participle, the verbal head is called a gerund if and only if the whole structure fills a NP role." But I have never seen a traditional grammar handle it that way. And it seems a bit convoluted.
The definition I have always heard for gerund is that it "acts like a noun." The most direct way to do that is to be the head of a noun phrase. Otherwise, it is acting like a verb and SOMETIMES heading a clause like structure that functions in NP roles.
Again, I think we agree on the underlying dynamic and perhaps on the need to do a better job than traditional grammar in describing/naming what shows up in the language.
Craig
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of Karl Hagen
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 3:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Gerunds into participles -- this time it's right!
Craig,
Taking a direct object doesn't disbar "undermining" from being a gerund. Notice the subject of my prior sentence, which is, in traditional grammar, a gerund. Even if we're going to stick to the traditional labels, we can distinguish between a noun derived from a verb and a gerund. The former uses a real NP structure, and complements must be prepositional phrases. The latter can take a direct object. Compare, "the undermining of his position," where "undermining" is an unambiguous noun.
One problem with the traditional way of looking at parts of speech is that it routinely confuses form and function. Gerunds aren't actually nouns, even though gerund phrases typically appear in spots occupied by noun phrases. Their internal structure remains verbal, and so to call a gerund a noun is a misleading simplification.
Karl
On Feb 26, 2014, at 11:42 AM, Hancock, Craig G <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> Michael,
> The fact that "their President" follows means "undermining" is functioning as non-finite verb, not as noun. (How else could it carry direct object in its construction?) That would be my thinking.
> "Democrats' undermining of their President" would be a noun phrase version and the possessive would be more appropriate.
> Traditional grammar uses gerund far too readily.
>
> Craig
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of Karl Hagen
> Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 2:25 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Gerunds into participles -- this time it's right!
>
> I'm not sure that it's really a matter of possessives with gerunds getting rare as that both forms have been in mixed use for a long time. I recommend the entry in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage, which gives an extensive history of both the construction itself and the voluminous commentary on the matter. It might also be worth looking at what the Cambridge Grammar of English has to say about the distinction between gerunds and participles.
>
> I do teach the possessive in front of the gerund-participle, but as a possibility, not as a requirement. I see it as primarily a mater of intended focus. Are we stressing the action (if so, use the possessive) or the object (if so, use the plain case)? In this instance, I find the plain form of "Democrats" preferable, as that's where I would put the focus. In other words, I read "undermining..." as a participial modifier of "Democrats" rather than as the head word in the object of the preposition.
>
> Karl
>
> On Feb 26, 2014, at 10:48 AM, Michael Kischner <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
>> Sorry about my sending troubles. This should be readable.
>>
>> From The Economist (Feb. 22): "Indeed, the idea that [trade deals] will not do much to help the economy is one excuse for Democrats undermining their president." I would have written "for Democrats' undermining their president," but the possessive before gerunds seems to be getting rare in both speech and writing. I hear a lot of "That's no excuse for them speaking rudely." So in parsing such sentences, do we consider the -ing words to be participles modifying the preceding noun? How many teachers out there still try to teach that gerunds are preceded by possessives? Thanks.
>>
>>
>>
>> Michael Kischner
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