Karl,
I think I will have to concede your point.  Thank you for your analysis.  
Let me, however, give you my real reason for giving in on this point.

In my dialect (ideolect?), the two -ing forms are actually different.  
The gerund regularly ends in the sound of a nasalized hard gutteral stop G.
The imperfect participle ends in the sound of a nasalized alveolar stop D.
When I listen for the variation in the sentences in question, one sounds wrong and the other right.  
As subject it is always better with the gutteral sound. 
I do hear our local weather lady on TV using the gutteral sound on the participle.  
Either some people are changing their dialect with training, or her original dialect did not make the distinction everywhere.  
Anyway, my ear makes me catch it all the time.  
In the sentence in question the alveolar sound is the only one that seems natural to me.  

I think Chomsky said that "Flying planes can be dangerous" is ambiguous.  
To me they are distinguished by the two different phonemes that are spelled the same! 
The fact that they are not spelled differently is the root of the problem, I think.  

--- [log in to unmask] wrote:

From:         Karl Hagen <[log in to unmask]>
To:           [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Sentence Pattern Question
Date:         Sun, 13 Oct 2019 08:13:13 -0700

It's worth noting that there's a strong case for seeing the traditional 
distinction between gerunds and participles as, in English at least, 
almost exclusively one of function rather than form. This makes the 
distinction redundant, since identifying the grammatical function and/or 
semantic role already tells us everything we need to know about 
function. Along these lines, Huddleston and Pullum use the term 
"gerund-participle" as the category label for both, and Aarts (in the 
Oxford Modern Grammar) simply calls it the "-ing participle" even when 
its filling classic gerund roles like the subject. For this reason, I 
don't find it crucial to distinguish them.

That said, I know a lot of readers on the list do follow the older 
categories, and within that framework, I'm not sure I agree with Kyu 
Hong and Bruce that its best seen as a gerund rather than a participle. 
If we think of "studying math" in the original example as filling a slot 
in the verb-phrase structure, the question is what kind of slot do we have:

{I [subject]} spent {the day [direct object]} { ______ [?]}.

If you add a preposition, "in studying...", then "studying..." clearly 
counts as a gerund, since it's now the object of a preposition. But when 
we do that, we're putting a preposition phrase in the [?] slot above. 
Preposition phrases don't, as a rule, interchange with noun phrases, and 
the fact that a plain noun phrase is ungrammatical here weighs against 
considering it to be a gerund.

Furthermore, picking up on Craig's observation about past participles, 
note that you can also use unequivocal adjective phrases, headed by 
words that are not derived from verbs, in the same slot:

I spent the day gleeful over the team's victory.

I'd argue that "gleeful over the team's victory" is a subject complement 
here, even though we have a direct object. This pattern is not one I 
remember seeing mentioned in basic grammar books, but it's easy to find 
parallel examples:

He cut the onions blindfolded.

The suggestion that the slot is adverbial assumes that it depicts how 
the subject studies. But it could also be seen as adjectival, simply 
depicting something about the subject, in parallel with the two AdjP 
examples above. If it's adjectival, then we clearly have a participle. 
And even if you see it as adverbial, its still not nominal, and 
therefore more participal-like then gerund-like.


On 10/12/2019 3:15 PM, Bruce Despain wrote:
> Greg,
> I think that Karl and kyo have given us some good suggestions. I hope my intuition from experience with many different grammars may be helpful.
>
> The first question is whether "studying" is best analyzed as a gerund (a verbal noun) or as a participle (a verbal adjective).
> The participle is the preferred analysis when its subject is being modified.
>    "I am studying math" makes me busy in this activity.
>    "Studying math I am ready to solve that problem." qualifies me for some action.
> The gerund focuses on the activity of the verbal.
>    "I like studying math" makes it the object of my preferring.
>    "Studying math helps me get ahead" makes the activity the subject.
> As object of a preposition it must be the gerund.
>    "I am busy in studying math" tells about the activity that makes me busy.
>    "I spent the whole day in studying math" tells about the activity that caused me to spend the day.
> The preposition "in" relates the prepositional phrase as an adverbial.
> This seems to make the gerund analysis the closest related pattern and seems to be right at home with other adverbials.
> It does not exclude other adverbials from accumulating along with it:
>    "I spent the whole day with the children in the park playing football." ("the whole day" is a direct object)
>    "I am busy all day with the children in the park playing football." ("all day" is an adverbial noun phrase)
> This accumulation of adverbials in a preferred order is called its cartology. Adjectivals do the same sort of thing in front of the noun phrase they modify.
>
> --- [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> From:         Greg Campbell <[log in to unmask]>
> To:           [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Sentence Pattern Question
> Date:         Sat, 12 Oct 2019 09:31:19 -0400
>
> Can anyone lend some input to what we have in the following sentence:
>
> I spent the whole day studying math.
>
> A student submitted it wanting "studying" to be the object complement, which it definitely isn't. One colleague is seeing "studying math" as potentially functioning adverbially (how you spent the day), and another sees "studying" as a second verb (lacking the helper verb) taking "math" as a direct object. It strikes all of us as a pretty common sentence pattern, yet we can't seem to pin it down. I know we're potentially missing something obvious, but any input is appreciated!
>
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