Suffixal Homophones
-ing participle
By
Dr. Azad Hasan Fatah
Gerundive -ing
• Sometimes a verb may be ended in an –ing
functioning as a noun. This means that it occupies the
nominal position. Similar to any English noun, it
functions as subject, direct object, indirect object,
object of preposition, subject complement (predicate
nominative), object complement.
• This –ing is derivational, since it does not close off the
words and the nominal inflectional morphemes can be
added. Teachings, paintings, drawings, readings, etc.
• Teaching is fun.
• Maria likes reading.
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A fun time for Rachel is reading. (predicate nominative).
Her favorite hobby is swimming.
His passion, traveling, inspired him in many ways. (appositive)
Mary keeps talking about her problem.
Geraldine has a love for traveling. (object of the preposition)
A gerund phrase includes the gerund, its modifiers, and the
words that complete the idea begun by the gerund. In each
sentence, the gerund is italicized, and the gerund phrase is
underlined.
Shopping for new dresses excites Terry Anne. (subject)
The orchestra members enjoy rehearsing for long periods of
time. (direct object)
Tommy's passion is running long distances. (predicate
nominative)
Joanna's love, running, kept her very fit. (appositive)
Can you pass the test by studying very hard this month? (object
of the preposition)
• The man signaling to you is my grandfather.
(participial phrase)
• Signaling to you was not difficult. (gerund phrase)
• The player passing the soccer ball is James.
(participial phrase)
• Passing the soccer ball was hard for that man.
(gerund phrase)
• He started talking about the festival.
-ing adjectival
• It is the homophonous form of –ing verbal. It
is derivational because it changes the part of
speech of the verbal root to which it is added.
These words ended by the –ing adjectival
precede the head of a noun phrase. They can
be preceded by the qualifiers such as too, so,
rather and very. They are also preceded by
more or most.
• This is a more exciting movie.
Tests
• The adjectival –ing can occur after linking
verbs and verb to be. So they will be
predicative adjective, as in
• He told a convincing tale.
• The tale seems convincing.
• The barking dog keeps all awake.
• *The dog seems barking.
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• If the –ing word can take the object, then it is the
verb, as in
• It was embarrassing me.
• In contrast, if the –ing word can be modified by
very, it is an adjective, as in
• It was (very) embarrassing.
• the verbal –ing can precede and follow the
nouns. Such as,
• The house burning
• The burning house
• In the case of reduced relative clause (whiz
deletion) the ing would be verbal, as in
• The man waving his hand is my friend.
Exercises
• Identify the type of the suffixes at the end of the
following underlined words. Give sound reasons
for your answers:
1. The meeting will be at 10 a.m.
2. Her amazing dancing excited the audience.
3. Don't get too excited by the sight of your name
in print. He was very excited to be asked to play
for Wales.
4. Some horses become excited when they are in
traffic.
Exercises
• I like swimming in the deep pools.