Lecture 7: Gerunds Faye Chalcraft

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1 Li8: The Structure of English Lecture 7: Gerunds Faye Chalcraft 1. Lexical categories The notion of lexical categories (e.g. noun and verb) has been central to grammatical theory since the very beginning. The principle of endocentricity assumes that every phrasal projection has a unique lexical head which determines its categorial properties. But there are constructions that appear to combine the properties of two different categories simultaneously. The English gerund is an example of one such mixed category, since it displays both nominal and verbal properties: (1) John s smoking cigars worries his mother. 2. A typology of ing forms There are several different contexts for the suffix ing. These include: 2.1 Non-gerund forms (2) a. The moulding on the wall. [Noun] b. John is cutting the grass. [Progressive] c. The whistling wind. [Adjective] d. Mary skipped home, singing all the way. [Adjunct] e. John spoke to Mary regarding her application. [?Preposition] 2.2 Gerunds Abney (1987) distinguishes four types of gerund: Poss-ing gerund (with a possessive subject) (3) a. John s smoking cigars worries his mother. b. She worries about his smoking cigars. Acc-ing gerund (with an accusative subject) (4) a. John smoking cigars worries his mother. b. She worries about him smoking cigars. PRO-ing gerund (with a PRO subject) (5) a. Smoking cigars can be dangerous. b. She worries about smoking cigars. 1

2 Ing-of gerund (with preposition of) (6) a. John s smoking of a cigar worried his mother. b. She worries about his smoking of cigars. 3. The ing-of construction The ing-of gerund is syntactically like a noun, and is sometimes referred to as a nominal gerund. But it also bears some semantic affinity with clauses: (7) a. That the kidnappers killed the hostages appalled everyone. b. The kidnappers killing of the hostages appalled everyone. In many contexts, nouns phrases and clauses occupy the same structural positions. In particular, both can appear as both subjects and objects: (8) [The old lady] swallowed [a fly]. (9) a. [That John was late] surprised Mary. b. John knows [that Mary was surprised]. But the distributional differences between ing-of gerunds and clauses are clear: Ing-of gerunds can serve as the subject of yes/no questions; clauses cannot: (10) a. Did John s singing of an aria surprise you? b. *Did that John sang an aria surprise you? Ing-of gerunds can appear as the object of a preposition; clauses cannot: (11) a. We heard about John s singing of an aria. b. *We heard about that John sang an aria. Ing-of gerunds can appear as the subject of small clauses; clauses cannot: (12) a. We considered his singing of an aria a big mistake. b. *We considered that he sang an aria a big mistake. Ing-of gerunds also have various other noun-like properties: Like nouns, they can have possessive subjects and prepositional complements: (13) a. John s giving of a book to Mary. b. John s gift of a book to Mary. Like nouns, they take adjectival rather than adverbial modification: (14) a. John s prompt answering of the question. b. *John s promptly answering of the question. 2

3 (15) a. John s prompt answer to the question. b. *John s promptly answer to the question. Their possessive subject can be replaced by a determiner: (16) a. The opening of the new Ikea store caused chaos. b. Every opening of a new store attracts thousands of customers. They can be pluralised: (17) All openings of new stores were put on hold. They allow prefixation by non, rather than not: (18) a. A non-opening. b. *A not-opening (19) a. A non-arrival. b. *A not-arrival. They may not contain auxiliaries: (20) a. Ikea s opening of their new store. b. *Ikea s having opened of their new store. c. *Ikea s having been opening of their new store. 4. The gerund-participial construction The subject may be accusative (Acc-ing), possessive (Poss-ing), or may not be pronounced at all (PRO-ing): (21) a. We disapproved of him selling the car. b. We disapproved of his selling the car. c. We disapproved of selling the car. 4.1 Nominal properties In common with nominal gerunds, gerund participial constructions may appear in the subject position of a yes/no question, as the object of a preposition, or as the subject of a small clause: (22) a. Did him/his/pro singing the aria surprise you? b. We heard about him/his/pro singing the aria. c. We considered him/his/pro singing the aria a big mistake Verbal properties But gerund participial constructions also have various verb-like characteristics. 3

4 They assign accusative case to their direct object, and, unlike nouns, do not need the preposition of to assign case for them: (23) a. Him/his/PRO destroying the spaceship cost millions. b. *His destruction the spaceship cost millions. c. His destruction of the spaceship cost millions. Gerunds of verbs like appear allow infinitival clause objects; the corresponding nouns don t: (24) a. Him/his/PRO appearing to be dead. b. *John s appearance to be dead. c. John s appearance of being dead. These gerunds require adverbial modification: (25) a. She approved of him/his/pro quietly leaving before anyone noticed. b. *She approved of him/his/pro quiet leaving before anyone noticed. They are negated by not: (26) We complained about him/his/pro not winning the prize. They have the same selectional properties as the corresponding main verb: Passive (27) a. John was helped by Mary. b. Him/his/PRO being helped by Mary made all the difference. Resultative (28) a. John squashed the spider flat. b. Him/his/PRO squashing the spider flat was a bit unkind. 4.3 Differences between Acc-ing and Poss-ing structures Although the two types of gerund are often interchangeable, there are certain stylistic and interpretative differences between them. Poss-ing is regarded as more formal than Acc-ing Abney describes the Acc-ing gerund as having a marginal character. But the Poss-ing gerund has a more limited range of subjects, so there are cases where the Acc-ing gerund must be used instead: (29) a. She hates it (*its) raining when she s had her hair done. b. There(*there s) being no beer in the house spoiled the party. c. I hate this (*this s) always happening. There is also a view that, although both types show a mix of nominal and verbal properties, Poss-ing gerunds are in some sense more nominal. 4

5 Apart from taking a possessive subject, they also pattern with nominals in preferring plural agreement when conjoined: (30) a. *That John came and that Mary came bother me. b. *John coming so often and Mary leaving so often bother me. c. John s coming so often and Mary s leaving so often bother me. Further evidence that the two gerunds are of slightly different types comes from the fact that they cannot be comfortably conjoined: (31) a. *John s coming and Mary leaving bother/bothers me. b. *John coming and Mary s leaving bother/bothers me. Elements of an Acc-ing complement may be extracted by wh-movement, whereas extraction is not possible from a Poss-ing gerund: (32) a. We remember him describing Paris. b. What city do you remember him describing t? (33) a. We remember his describing Paris. b. *What city do you remember his describing t? 5. Analyses Huddleston & Pullum (2002) Historically gerunds are changing from nouns to verbs Acc-ing gerunds are further advanced along this path. Abney (1987) Proposes what has become the standard generative insight, viz. that Possing gerunds have the external syntax of a nominal projection and the internal syntax of a verbal projection; though he also suggests that Acc-ing gerunds are full clauses. He captures the mixed character of gerunds by saying that the gerund is a verb, but adding the possessive marker makes it a noun phrase (or DP in his terms). Hudson (2003) The gerund has the syntax of a nominal projection and the syntax of a verbal projection at the same time. His approach challenges the category theory mentioned above. 6. References and further reading Abney, Steven Paul The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect. Doctoral dissertation, MIT. See especially Chapter 1 Introduction and Chapter 3 Gerunds Available from: or via 5

6 Hudson, Richard Gerunds without phrase structure. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 21: Huddleston, Rodney, and Pullum, Geoffrey K The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [see especially chapter 14, sections 1.5 and 1.6 The structure of gerundparticipials, , ]. Pullum, Geoffrey K English nominal gerund phrases as noun phrases with verb-phrase heads. Linguistics 29: