ing/Vnde-merger Iris Gemeinbck 1 *originally - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

ing/Vnde-merger Iris Gemeinböck 1 *originally “participle/gerund-merger” *but trying to keep forms and functions apart, gerund = function as i see it

Outline forms: present participle, deverbal noun why is there a problem? distribution of endings for participle, noun an additional player: the infinitive gerund? outlook 2

Nonfinite forms in OE writ -an infinitive (ge-)writ -en past participle writ -ende, -inde, -and present participle writ -ing (de-)verbal noun 3 * all these forms nonfinite, i.e. not marked for person, number, tense *4 di fg erent kinds, like in present-day english, but separate su ffj xes *present participle similar to form in German: schreibend, stehend, gehend, “Kurz will 2. kindergartenjahr verpflichtend” (orf.at) *variant of -ing = ung; ing for abstract female nouns from weak verb stems: blessing, loving (Irwin) *ung, had all but vanished by ME period

The problem present participle inde (ing), and, ende deverbal noun ‘ing-forms’ (ung), ing (infinitive?) 4 *forms merged during ME period *acc to Lass infinitive involved as well, also has variants with -ing su ffj x *next, look at distributions of present participle forms and noun

Present participle forms and(e) end(e) ind(e), ing(e) 5 *e in brackets is dative-form *rough division into north, midlands, south, from Lass and van Gelderen

Present participle distribution end(e) and(i,e) ind(e) ing(e), yng(e) M1 M2 M3 M34 M4 0 125 250 375 500 6 *normalized, per 100000 words, actual numbers not that important, but proportions *acc. to Lass -and should be inflected -andi, but also found -ande; no Northern texts in m1 *found -end without e, not listed in Lass *also: no andi, but many ande *found very popular spelling variant of ing with y *as ing gets more popular, ind (also south) vanishes, rest are also reduced *and stays longer, forms kept separate in north for longer period!

(De-)verbal nouns ing(e), yng(e) participle ing(e), yng(e), ung(e) nouns M1 M2 M3 M34 M4 0 375 750 1125 1500 7 *ung ending disappears after M1, instances included in same category as ing/yng *only one instance in M3: the conseillung of hem *spelling with y preferred in M2-M4 *number of nouns with -ing seems stable, not influenced by rise of present participle ing- form

Additional form: infinitive origin: neuter noun, lost most inflection OE: inflected for dative - enne (later - anne ) southern, southwestern, south midlands ME -enne -ende, inde : to flende -inge: to doiinge, to menyinge until 14th century (Lass 1992: 145) 8 *nominative of the infinitive -an (beran, habban...) *could be inflected *-ende similar to present participle *-inge related to -ing of noun, -e from OE dative of -ing; *could not find any examples in corpus (only monosyllabic words, no su ffj x...)

Confusion of ing-forms originally today adjectives present participle: verbal adjective complement to auxiliaries (progressive) ing suffix lexical nouns verbal noun: derived noun verbal nouns (gerunds) infinitive lost suffix (noun-like) infinitive: neuter noun? 9 *verbal adj. from IE *Germanic derived noun, feminine abstract *many forms with same su ffj x, all nonfinite -> syntactic confusion *period of variation (Roger Lass) *result: ing-form has many functions *lexical nouns: blessing, (teaching)

Why did ing spread? and(e) end(e) ind(e), ing(e) 10 *theory ( Grzega) : influence of London area after ties to Normandy were broken *spread from South/East Midlands region *also: but also confusion, phonetic change

Gerund position of noun phrase: John’s anger surprised us. taking a sabbatical John’s surprised us. internal verb phrase structure: John takes a sabbatical. 11 *function, not separate form; “verbal noun” bc noun-ing acquired verbal properties, syntactic *example from present-day English *also: John taking a sabbatical *some scholars: verb-like properties of ing-constructions acquired in ME period *Donner: this type of construction did not exist in ME, except for a few cases.

Gerund in ME? late development unambiguous gerundial constructions: mainly in Reginald Pecock (philosophical texts translation from Latin more from 15th century onwards (Donner 1986) other linguistis: gerund did exist (Tajima 1996, Bauer 1993) 12 *unambiguous: not only noun-like characteristics, but have direct object, not prepositional phrase ‘of’ after (like ‘the painting of the walls’, instead: ‘painting the walls’)

Gerunds? “ bakbytyng_VAG me_PRO ,_, for_P +tat_C ich_PRO folwed_VBD godene” (cmearlps.m2, Earliest Prose Psalter) “+tat_C it_PRO may_MD lufe_VB hym_PRO verraly_ADV ,_, feland_VAG comforth_N and_CONJ delyte_N in_P hym_PRO ,_, owtkastyng_VAG worldes_N$ thoghtes_NS ” (cmrollep.m24, Richard Rolle’s Epistles) “in_P wirkyng_VAG profitabel_ADJ thynges_NS ” (cmrollep.m24, Richard Rolle’s Epistles) 13 *present participle seems to have direct object, occurs in noun position, or where modern gerundial constructions would be *first two are subjectless gerunds *second: actually mixed su ffj xes, but similar construction! *especially last example looks like modern gerundial construction, often preceded by preposition, then direct object *acc to corpus description all unambiguous gerunds marked as present participles, not nouns

My view It’s a mess. some claims not substantiated separate forms from functions ‘constructions’, patterns 14 *many ing forms tagged as present participles, but function as adjectives *di ffj cult to separate what is adjective+noun, gerund+direct object *claims: infinitive forms with ende, ing not found *some researchers use ‘gerund’ for all participial ing-forms, don’t distinguish functions *alternatively: look at patterns/constructions

Outlook find texts with different forms? qualitative analysis of ing-forms: function, gerundial? any other interesting research questions? 15 *2 options: find texts with mixed forms, see how they were used by individual authors/ scribes *second (will prob do): find gerundial constructions, especially in earlier periods *could help describe the coalescence of present participle and noun-ing

Bibliography Bauer, Brigitte L.M. 1993. “The coalescence of the participle and the gerund/gerundive: an integrated change”. In Aertsen, Henk; Jeffers, Robert J. (ed). Historical linguistics 1989 : papers from the 9th international conference on historical linguistics, Rutgers University, 14-18 August 1989 . Amsterdam: Benjamins, 59-71. Blake, Norman (ed). 1996. The Cambridge history of the English language: 1066-1476 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Donner, Morton. 1986. “The gerund in Middle English”. English studies: a journal of English language and literature 67(5), 394-400. Gelderen, Elly van. 2006. A history of the English language . Amsterdam: Benjamins. Grzega, Joachim. 1999. “A new view on why, how and how far ing prevailed over ind”. VIEWS: Vienna English Working Papers 8(1), 34-43. Irwin, Betty J. 1967. The development of the -ing ending of the verbal noun and the present participle from c. 700 to c. 1400 . PhD thesis, The University of Wisconsin. Tajima, Matsuji. 1996. “The common/objective-case subject of the gerund in Middle English”. NOWELE 28-29, 569-577. 16