The verbal gerund as an instance of ‘discourse-functional verbalization’: reference types and
reference status
This paper discusses the development of nominal (NG) and verbal gerunds (VG) with a focus on their
discourse-functional behaviour from Late Middle to Late Modern English. NGs, as in (1), have the
internal syntax of a noun phrase (NP), whereas VGs, as in (2), have the internal syntax of a clause.
(1) There is, first, the dryness inseparable from the learning of a language,(…). (1878, PPCMBE)
(2) (…) ye happinesse of being esteemed My Lord Your Excellencie's most (…) humble servant
Danby. (1688, PPCEME)
From a synchronic point-of view, both gerund types are nominalizations. Diachronically, however,
VGs are commonly believed to have developed from NGs through a process of verbalization. Seeing
that the morphosyntactic categoriality of a form is often a reflection of its discursive behaviour
(Hopper&Thompson 1985), it is surprising that the formal verbalization of the gerund is well
documented (among others: Jack 1988; Fanego 2004), but very little is known on its discoursefunctional implications. The aim of this paper, then, is to study VGs against the background of their
interaction with NGs and prototypical NPs in order to show that the verbalization of the gerund is not
merely a morphosyntactic but also a discourse-functional process.
The discourse-functional approach in this paper is operationalized in two ways. In the first
part, the gerund is treated as a discourse referent that fits into the nominal paradigm in terms of the
types of reference they can realize (cf. specific definite (3), indefinite (4) vs. generic (5)):
(3) he (…) told them of the sodeyne departyng of the duke and his wyf. (a1470, PPCME2)
(4) there began a grete medele of brekyng of speres and smytyng of swerdes. (a1470,
PPCME2)
(5) they vainly imagine the Power of doing Evil(…) to be an Happiness. (1556, PPCEME)
In the second part, the gerund will be studied in terms of reference status. It is argued that NPs
prototypically function as manipulable/targetable discourse referents, while verbs prototypically relate
such referents. NP-like units are therefore easily targetable by anaphora (6), while more clausal units
will rather be accessed for its internal participants (7):
(6) (…) the talking of the sailors on the deck be plainly audible. This is not, however, to
assume it will be understandable. (1905, PPCMBE)
(7) They were very energetic (…) about making a raft, though what they thought we could do
with it in that heavy sea I don't know. (1900, PPCMBE)
In both cases, it is hypothesised that the VG will (increasingly) function as an atypical NP and show
clause-like characteristics. To test this hypothesis, we analysed the nominal and verbal gerunds found
in the suite of the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English and divided the data into 3 periods
covering the 1420-1914 time span.
Results show that over time VGs did in fact discourse-functionally verbalize. Concerning
reference types, NGs constitute a system with nominal grounding, primarily concerned with referent
identification (Langacker 2009:150) and using definite and indefinite determiners to indicate whether
or not the designated event is known to the hearer. VGs on the other hand have come to focus more on
clausal grounding categories (based on whether an event did, will or can occur) and is as such
increasingly tied to the modal and temporal space evoked by the matrix clause. Concerning reference
status, it is shown that while manipulable event referents are increasingly realized by means of NGs,
VGs become less likely to be targeted by anaphora and show a high degree of accessibility of their
internal participants.
De Smet, Hendrik. 2008. Functional motivations in the development of nominal and verbal
gerunds in Middle and Early Modern English. English Language and Linguistics 12:55-102.
Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson, 1985. “The iconicity of the universal categories
‘noun’ and ‘verb’”. In: Iconicity in Syntax, John Haiman (ed.), 151-186. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
John Benjamins.
Fanego, Teresa. 2004. On reanalysis and actualization in syntactic change: the rise and
development of English verbal gerunds. Diachronica 21.1: 5-55.
Jack, George. 1988. The origins of the English gerund. Nowele 12: 15–75.
Langacker, R. W. 2009. Investigations in Cognitive Grammar. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.