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]
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]> 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]] On Behalf Of Karl Hagen
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 3:17 PM
To: [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]> 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]] On Behalf Of Karl Hagen
> Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 2:25 PM
> To: [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]> 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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