Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-kw2vx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-25T00:28:51.223Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Functional motivations in the development of nominal and verbal gerunds in Middle and Early Modern English1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2008

HENDRIK DE SMET
HENDRIK DE SMET*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, bus 3308, B-3000 Leuven, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the use of three gerund constructions in Middle and Early Modern English on the basis of corpus data covering the period 1250–1640. The constructions examined are verbal gerunds (eating the apple), bare nominal gerunds (eating of the apple), and definite nominal gerunds (the eating of the apple). It is argued that the success of verbal gerunds in the history of English can only be understood against the background of the interaction with their nominal counterparts. An analysis is offered of how the system of gerund constructions is functionally organised, comparing discourse-functional behaviour, distribution, and internal syntax across the three gerund types. It is shown that verbal gerunds closely resemble bare nominal gerunds in terms of discourse-functional behaviour and distribution, but are syntactically more flexible. As a result, verbal gerunds could replace bare nominal gerunds, copying their function but adding syntactic flexibility. By contrast, definite nominal gerunds, being functionally distinct from the other two types, developed a number of specialised uses, which ensured their survival. These conclusions throw light on issues of functional motivation in the development of the English gerund. Historical change is seen to be grounded in synchronic functional organisation. At the same time, it is shown that the only existing explanation for the rise of verbal gerunds (attributing their success to their ability to combine with prepositions) can only be partly correct.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 55 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Behrens, Leila. 2005. Genericity from a cross-linguistic perspective. Linguistics 43, 275–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlson, Greg N. 1977. A unified analysis of the English bare plural. Linguistics and Philosophy 1, 413–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1976. The syntax of action nominals: A cross-linguistic study. Lingua 40, 177–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Reflections on subject and object control. Journal of Semantics 4, 47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard & Thompson, Sandra A.. 1985. Lexical nominalization. In Shopen, Timothy (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, 349–98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Croft, William. 2000. Explaining language change: An evolutionary approach. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Dal, Ingerid. 1952. Zur Entstehung des englischen Participium Praesentis auf -ing. Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap 16, 5–116.Google Scholar
Davidse, Kristin. 1999. The semantics of cardinal versus enumerative existential constructions. Cognitive Linguistics 10, 203–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Declerck, Renaat. 1991a. A comprehensive descriptive grammar of English. Tokyo: Kaitakusha.Google Scholar
Declerck, Renaat. 1991b. The origins of genericity. Linguistics 29, 79–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Smet, Hendrik. Forthcoming. Nominal gerunds in 16th-century English: The function of the definite article. Folia Linguistica Historica.Google Scholar
Disterheft, Dorothy. 1981. Remarks on the history of the Indo-European infinitive. Folia Linguistica Historica 2, 3–34.Google Scholar
Donner, Morton. 1986. The gerund in Middle English. English Studies 67, 394–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Einenkel, Eugen. 1914. Die Entwickelung des englischen Gerundiums. Anglia 38, 1–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emonds, Joseph. 1973. The derived nominals, gerunds, and participles in Chaucer's English. In Kachru, Braj B. & Lees, Robert B. (eds.), Issues in linguistics: Papers in honor of Henry and Renée Kahane, 185–9. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Fanego, Teresa. 1996a. The gerund in Early Modern English: Evidence from the Helsinki Corpus. Folia Linguistica Historica 17, 97–152.Google Scholar
Fanego, Teresa 1996b. The development of gerunds as objects of subject-control verbs in English (1400–1760). Diachronica 13, 29–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fanego, Teresa. 1998. Developments in argument linking in early Modern English gerund phrases. English Language and Linguistics 2, 87–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fanego, Teresa. 2004. On reanalysis and actualization in syntactic change: The rise and development of English verbal gerunds. Diachronica 21, 5–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, Olga. 1992. Syntax. In Blake, Norman (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 2, 207–408. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
García, Erica C. 1999. Diachronic viability of syntactic alternatives. Linguistics 37, 65–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Givón, Talmy. 1992. The grammar of referential coherence as mental processing instructions. Linguistics 30, 5–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haiman, John. 1983. Iconic and economic motivation. Language 59, 781–819.Google Scholar
Halmøy, Odile. 2003. Les formes gérondives dans Les.XV. Joies de mariage et autres textes du XVe siècle. Langages 149, 25–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Alice C. & Campbell, Lyle. 1995. Historical syntax in cross-linguistic perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 1989. From purposive to infinitive: A universal path of grammaticalization. Folia Linguistica Historica 10, 287–310.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 1999. Optimality and diachronic adaptation. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 18, 180–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, John A. 1978. Definiteness and indefiniteness: A study in reference and grammaticality prediction. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Hawkins, John A. 2004. Efficiency and complexity in grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania. 2005. Language contact and grammatical change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heyvaert, Liesbet. 2003. A cognitive-functional approach to nominalization in English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heyvaert, Liesbet. 2004. Towards a symbolic typology of -ing nominalizations. In Achard, Michel & Kemmer, Suzanne (eds.), Language, culture, and mind, 493–506. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Heyvaert, Liesbet. 2006. On the constructional semantics of gerundive nominalizations. Preprint 258. University of Leuven: Department of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Houston, Ann. 1989. The English gerund. Syntactic change and discourse function. In Fasold, Ralph W. & Schiffrin, Deborah (eds.), Language change and variation, 173–95. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudson, Richard. 2007. Language networks: The new word grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jack, George. 1988. The origins of the English gerund. Nowele 12, 15–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1940. A Modern English grammar on historical principles, vol. 5. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 1993. Nominalizations. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kranich, Svenja. 2006. The origin of English gerundial constructions: A case of French influence? In Johnston, Andrew James, von Mengden, Ferdinand & Thim, Stefan (eds.), Language and text: Current perspectives on English and German historical linguistics and philology, 179–95. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.Google Scholar
Kroch, Anthony, Santorini, Beatrice & Delfs, Lauren. 2004. Penn-Helsinki parsed corpus of Early Modern English. www.ling.upenn.edu/hist-corpora/PPCEME-RELEASE-1/.Google Scholar
Kytö, Merja. 1996. Manual to the diachronic part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts. Coding conventions and lists of source texts. University of Helsinki: Department of English.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. 1991. Foundations of cognitive grammar, vol. 2. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. 2001. Topic, subject, and possessor. In Simonsen, Hanne Gram & Endresen, Rolf Theil (eds.), A cognitive approach to the verb: Morphological and constructional perspectives, 11–48. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Lass, Roger. 1998. Historical linguistics and language change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lees, Robert B. 1966. The grammar of English nominalizations. Bloomington: Indiana University.Google Scholar
Los, Bettelou. 2005. The rise of the to-infinitive. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Garry D. 2002. Nonfinite structures in theory and change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mustanoja, Tauno F. 1960. A Middle English syntax. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.Google Scholar
Pullum, Geoffrey K. 1991. English nominal gerund phrases as noun phrases with verb-phrase heads. Linguistics 29, 763–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Raumolin-Brunberg, Helena. 1991. The noun phrase in early sixteenth-century English: A study based on Sir Thomas More's writings. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.Google Scholar
Rissanen, Matti. 1999. Syntax. In Lass, Roger (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 3, 187–331. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rohdenburg, Günter. 1996. Cognitive complexity and increased grammatical explicitness in English. Cognitive Linguistics 7, 149–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, John Robert. 1973. Nouniness. In Fujimura, Osamu (ed.), Three dimensions of linguistic research, 137–257. Tokyo: TEC Company.Google Scholar
Tajima, Matsuji. 1985. The syntactic development of the gerund in Middle English. Tokyo: Nan'un-do.Google Scholar
Tajima, Matsuji. 1996. The common-/objective-case subject of the gerund in Middle English. Nowele 29, 569–78.Google Scholar
Tajima, Matsuji. 1999. The compound gerund in Early Modern English. In Embleton, Sheila, Joseph, John E. & Niederehe, Hans-Josef (eds.), The emergence of the modern language sciences: Studies on the transition from historical-comparative to structural linguistics in honour of E. F. K. Koerner, 265–76. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Van der Wurff, Wim. 1993. Gerunds and their objects in the Modern English period. In van Marle, Jaap (ed.), Historical linguistics 1991, 363–75. Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Visser, Frederikus Theodorus. 1963–73. An historical syntax of the English language. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Willemse, Peter. 2005. Nominal reference point constructions. Possessive and esphoric NPs in English. Doctoral thesis. University of Leuven: Department of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Willemse, Peter. 2006. Esphoric the N of a(n) N-nominals. Forward bridging to an indefinite reference point. Folia Linguistica 40, 319–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar