Peyman,
Thank you for your very kind holiday wishes. The Jesus stories of your holy book and of mine together make an interesting patchwork narrative. It's sad that more people haven't read both. The same is true of the Abraham narratives, which I've discussed and compared with some of my students, resulting in some very interesting conversations.
We on this list have had some extensive discussions in the past on the analysis and description of -ing forms. You can get a sense of some of the differences of point of view from Erin's and Brett's treatments, and it's one of those areas of grammar where there is no simple, completely satisfying treatment. What works for your students in the classroom is always a good standard to follow.
Part of the reason why the problem exists is the history of the language and the development of -ing forms. In earlier versions of English, Old and Middle especially, the suffix -ing formed nouns and could be added to both verbs and nouns. When added to a verb it clearly formed a gerund, the term for a noun formed from a verb. The present participle was formed by adding -end or -ind to a verb stem. For a variety of reasons, this suffix fell out of usage and its role was taken over by -ing. One of the mechanisms by which this happened was the reduction of the unstressed -end suffix to -en, which was pronounced with a schwa, that is, like the final syllable of "taken." This reduction is, in all probability, the major source of the <-in'> form, where <> indicates an orthographic form rather than a pronunciation, and so "taking" and "takin'," which are alternate forms in speech, reflect two different histories, a gerund and a participle, that have merged into variation on a single form. Historically, then, "takin'" has nothing to do with dropping a <g>; it was a /d/ that dropped, but so long ago that no one would pronounce it or recognize the pronunciation as a variant of -ing if they heard it today. It was that merger that results in the modern syncretism of gerunds and participles, so that they are distinguishable only by function. The present participle function is an -ing form used as a non-finite verb or an adjective; the gerund function is an -ing form used as a noun. Call them two different things or call them one thing: it really doesn't matter as long as you can help your students to master their effective use.
I do have a more rigorous position on the question of how to analyze and describe -ing forms, but it's really not useful in most teaching contexts, so I won't burden the list with it in this context.
Happy Holidays!
Herb
Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
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From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of peyman javadi [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: December 27, 2009 4:42 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Gerunds and Participles
Okay my question is about gerunds and participles. Now w
Hello all,
Okay my question is about gerunds and participles. Now we know that they are verb forms that can be used as nouns. Typically gerunds end in ing and participles can often appear in the ed or en endings of verbs like broken or worked. Am I right so far? It seems I came across and example or two of participles that also end in ing. Could you please explain to me how to distinguish between the two; it seems to me that if an ing ending is used in an adjective context, then that ing ending is considered a participle. However, I am not a 100% certain about this. I will simply look forward to your explanations.
Thanks
Peyman
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