Toward a “Monosyntactic” (and Monosemic?) Analysis of –ing Forms in English
John P. Broderick
Professor of English
Old Dominion University
jpbroder@odu.edu
[Abstract]
The Oxford English Dictionary (Compact OED, 1971) lists three –ing suffixes: -ing1, -ing2, and -ing3. The last of these,
-ing3, is an obscure derivational suffix that plays a role in the etymology of words like shilling and farthing and even of
diminutives like duckling. This paper’s focus is -ing1, the so-called gerund suffix, and -ing2, the so-called present participle
suffix.
During the Old English period, the gerund suffix was exclusively a derivational suffix that derived nouns from verbs, and
this function is widely apparent in Contemporary English in words like the following:
(1) blessing, wedding, christening, meeting
Note that they behave fully like nouns: they have plurals:
(2) blessings, weddings, christenings, meetings
They can be preceded by DETERMINERS and followed by POSTMODIFIERS:
(3) the blessing of the animals, the meeting of the committee
They may even be preceded by MODIFIERS:
(4) the solemn blessing
Such words are, in every sense, nouns.
The OED takes some pains to note that this original noun-forming use of this suffix was limited throughout the Old
English period to nouns of action, and that the use of this suffix to create true gerund forms of any and all verbs did not
appear until the early Middle English period in the middle of the 14 th Century. It was thus, only beginning in the mid 1300s
that the gerund came into existence (i.e., an inflected form that, like a noun, retains the possibility of a possessive
DETERMINER -- Her racing surprised us --, but, like a verb, allows a full array of clause complements -- Her racing sports
cars surprised us).
At about the same time, an even more interesting phenomenon was affecting the present participle suffix. Here is the
remarkable fact about it: Throughout the Old English period it was spelled -ende, and later -inde. That is, it had a completely
different etymology from the gerund suffix. It began to appear in manuscripts spelled -inge only in the middle of the 14th
century. Anglo-Normal scribes were literally confusing its written and spoken form (by then, generally –inge) with that of the
gerund suffix (-inge). Now, the Old English –ende suffix was never a noun deriving suffix; it was an inflectional suffix; the
words it created remained verbs: i.e., present participles.
These are the historical facts that lie behind the widely held distinction between gerunds (with –ing1) and present
participles (with –ing2). However, the distinction is not universally accepted; for example, both types of -ing forms are
subsumed under the term “-ing participles” in Quirk et al. (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language.
Based on analysis of sentences from the OED entries for both of these suffixes, this paper argues that we can give both
types of -ing forms one part-of-speech label while at the same time explaining all grammatical differences as differences
among the functional positions of -ing participle clauses. Specifically, it is asserted that so-called gerunds appear in -ing
participle clauses functioning as HEAD of a noun phrase, whereas so-called present participles appear in -ing participle
clauses functioning as either POST MODIFIERS in noun phrases or as CLAUSE COMPLEMENTS.
The focus of the argument will be on establishing a “monosyntactic” analysis of the two types of -ing forms, but an
implied corollary of the argument will be that the forms have become synchronically monosemic as well, despite their
different diachronic origins.
Broderick page 2
The Oxford English Dictionary (Compact OED, 1971) lists three –ing suffixes: -ing1, -ing2, and -ing3. The
last of these, -ing3, is an obscure derivational suffix that plays a role in the etymology of words like shilling and
farthing and even of diminutives like duckling. This paper’s focus is on -ing1, the so-called “gerund” suffix, and
on -ing2, the so-called “present participle” suffix.
During the Old English period, the gerund suffix was exclusively a derivational suffix that derived nouns
from verbs, and this function is widely apparent in Contemporary English in words like the following:
(1) blessing, wedding, christening, meeting
Note that they behave fully like nouns: they have plurals:
(2) blessings, weddings, christenings, meetings
They can be preceded by DETERMINERS and followed by POSTMODIFIERS:
(3) the blessing of the animals, the meeting of the committee
They may even be preceded by MODIFIERS:
(4) the solemn blessing
Such words are, in every sense, nouns.
The OED takes some pains to note that this original noun-forming use of this suffix was limited throughout
the Old English period to nouns of action, and that the use of this suffix to create true gerund forms of any and all
verbs did not appear until the early Middle English period in the middle of the 14 th Century. It was thus, only
beginning in the mid 1300s, that the gerund came into existence (i.e., an inflected form that, like a noun, retains
the possibility of a possessive DETERMINER -- Her racing surprised us --, but, like a verb, allows a full array of
clause complements -- Her racing sports cars surprised us).
At about the same time, an even more interesting phenomenon was affecting the present participle suffix.
Here is the remarkable fact about it: Throughout the Old English period it was spelled -ende, and later -inde. That
is, it had a completely different etymology from the gerund suffix. It began to appear in manuscripts spelled -inge
only in the middle of the 14th century. Anglo-Norman scribes were literally confusing its written and spoken form
(by then, generally –inge) with that of the gerund suffix (-inge). Now, the Old English –ende suffix was never a
noun-deriving suffix; it was an inflectional suffix; the words it created remained verbs: i.e., present participles.
Broderick page 3
These are the historical facts that lie behind the widely held distinction between gerunds (with –ing1) and
present participles (with –ing2). However, the distinction is not universally accepted; for example, both types of
-ing forms are subsumed under the term “-ing participles” in Quirk et al. (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of
the English Language.
Based on analysis of sentences from the OED entries for both of these suffixes, this paper argues that we can
give both types of -ing forms one part-of-speech label while at the same time explaining all grammatical
differences as differences of the functional positions of -ing participle clauses. Specifically, it is asserted that socalled “gerunds” appear in -ing participle clauses functioning as HEAD of a noun phrase, whereas so-called
“present participles” appear in -ing participle clauses functioning as either POST MODIFIERS in noun phrases or
as CLAUSE COMPLEMENTS.
The focus of the argument will be on establishing a “monosyntactic” analysis of the two types of -ing forms,
but an implied corollary of the argument will be that the forms have become synchronically monosemic as well,
despite their different diachronic origins.
Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik’s monumental reference work, A Comprehensive Grammar of the
English Language (Longman, 1985) stands as the only complete reference grammar of English published in the
second half of the 20th Century. Greenbaum’s more recent work, The Oxford English Grammar (Oxford, 1996),
is less than half as long and less comprehensive, but it can serve as a highly usable reference work nonetheless.
Both works, while taking account of insights into English grammar that have grown out of various schools of
American linguistics, are solidly rooted in the European tradition of functional linguistics, and British systemic
linguistics in particular.
In British systemic grammar, function and form are so consistently distinguished, analyzed, and labeled that
every word, phrase, and clause is assigned both a functional label, describing its position in a higher structure, and
also a formal label, naming the formal elements that occupy the position. I have currently completed about 60%
of a grammar book (Broderick, 2000), developed for use in the undergraduate grammar course required for
teaching certification, which draws heavily on British systemic linguistic concepts and methods but which seeks
to use as much of the terminology of traditional grammar as possible. I have adopted the convention of printing
Broderick page 4
functional (i.e., position) labels in all upper case letters and formal labels in lower case letters. In grammar tree
diagrams, the all-upper-case abbreviations of functional labels have a colon attached. On the other hand, the
abbreviations of formal categories are in lower case. If they are clause labels or phrase labels, they have an arrow
head attached; if they label individual parts of speech, they have three ellipsis dots attached. In the grammar tree
diagrams in this paper, solid lines, and the upper case abbreviations at the ends of such lines, thus represent
positions within phrases and clauses. Dashed lines do not mark positions; they simply connect a part of speech
label to the spelling of a word that belongs to that part-of-speech category.
A gerund is often defined as a word that has the form of a verb but the function of a noun. Specifically, a
gerund is a verb or linking verb, with the -ing inflectional suffix attached that seems to be able to go where nouns
go and do what nouns do. For example, given the sentence Exercise improved my health, one could replace the
noun exercise with the gerund swimming and produce a perfectly grammatical sentence: Swimming improved my
health. Some grammar books, influenced by the noun-forming etymological origin of this suffix in Old English,
have continued to treat the -ing on swimming as a derivational (rather than inflectional) suffix that makes a noun
out of a verb. But that analysis doesn’t even begin to account for the relevant grammatical facts.
Even though the gerund swimming seems to be doing what a noun does in filling the SUBJECT position in
Swimming improved my health, it still can behave very much like a verb. For example, it can have its own
DIRECT OBJECT: Swimming laps improved my health. It can also have its own CLAUSE COMPLEMENT:
Swimming laps daily improved my health. Swimming thus seems to have a PREDICATER function in relation to
the DIRECT OBJECT noun phrase laps and the CLAUSE COMPLEMENT adverb phrase daily. How can it be
SUBJECT in relation to improved my health and PREDICATER in relation to laps and daily? Its grammar is
further complicated by the fact that English grammar allows My swimming improved my health. Now swimming,
like a noun again, seems to be functioning as a HEAD in relation to the DETERMINER possessive article my.
Surely, the traditional definition of a gerund only begins to hint at the complexities of its grammar.
In (5) is a sentence (Our paying taxes to the government does not improve the economy) in which the gerund
paying seems to function simultaneously as HEAD (having a DETERMINER possessive article our preceding it)
and also as PREDICATER (having a DIRECT OBJECT noun phrase higher taxes and a PREPOSITIONAL
Broderick page 5
COMPLEMENT prepositional phrase to the government following it). How can we analyze such sentences
grammatically in such a way that all of these functional relationships can be explained? Here is a tree diagram
analysis of this sentence that seems to do the trick:
(5)
declcl>
S:
np>
D:
possart...
P:
vp>
H:
-ingparcl>
P:
ingpar...
DO:
np>
HPR: SN: MP: D:
H:
proaux… neg… v… dart… n…
DO:
np>
PC:
pp>
M:
H: R:
adj… n… p…
OP:
np>
D:
H:
dart… n…
Our paying higher taxes to the government does not improve the economy
In the diagram (5), paying higher taxes to the government is analyzed as an -ing participle clause (-ingparcl>),
within which paying is a PREDICATER that has higher taxes as its DIRECT OBJECT and to the government as
its PREPOSITIONAL COMPLEMENT.
The possessive article our is given the functional label of
DETERMINER in a noun phrase of which the entire –ing participle clause is the HEAD.
If such an –ing participle (alias, “gerund”) occurred in such a sentence without complements (as in the
sentence, Swimming improved my health), it would be analyzed as in (6). We must analyze the sentence in this
way to allow for swimming (as the entire content of the –ing participle clause) to be simultaneously labeled as the
HEAD, thus showing that a potential DETERMINER possessive article like my could be added, and also (as a
constituent within the –ing participle clause) to be labeled as a PREDICATER, thus showing that a potential
Broderick page 6
DIRECT OBJECT noun phrase like laps could be added. In sum, the –ing participle in its “gerund” alias acts like
a verb within its clause, but the whole gerund clause acts like a noun, functioning as HEAD of a noun phrase.
(6)
declcl>
S:
np>
P:
vp>
H:
-ingparcl>
MP:
v…
DO:
np>
D:
possart…
H:
n…
P:
-ingpar...
Swimming
improved
my
health.
Now, what about those –ing forms that have traditionally been called present participles (the OED’s –ing2)?
Superficially, they differ from traditional “gerunds” in that they cannot be preceded by possessive articles (or
possessive noun phrases, for that matter). How can we account for this difference? Very simply. Traditional
“present participle clauses” are simply -ing participle clauses that occupy functional positions other than HEAD
of a noun phrase. For example, they can function as POST MODIFIERS in noun phrases: In the sentence, The
woman selling books is my friend, the words selling books POST MODIFY woman. Traditional “present
participle clauses” also function as INITIAL CLAUSE COMPLEMENTS: Selling books, Helen witnessed the
accident. In (7) and (8), you will find diagrams of these two sentences:
Broderick page 7
(7)
declcl>
S:
np>
D:
dart...
H:
n...
P:
lvp>
PM:
-ingparcl>
P:
-ingpar...
SC:
np>
MP: D:
H:
lv... possart... n...
DO:
np>
H:
n...
The
woman
selling
books
is
my
friend.
(8)
declcl>
ICC:
-ingparcl>
P:
-ingpar...
DO:
np>
S:
np>
P:
vp>
H:
n...
MP:
v...
DO:
np>
D:
dart...
H:
n...
H:
n...
Selling
books,
Helen
witnessed
the
accident.
To restate my argument so far: In contemporary English, there is no formal (i.e., internal structural)
difference between the clauses in which so-called “gerunds” and so-called “present participles” appear. More
specifically, DETERMINER possessive articles in grammatical sequences such as my swimming or our giving do
not directly DETERMINE the –ing form that they accompany; rather, they determine the entire–ing participle
clause, within which the –ing participle functions as PREDICATER.
Inspired by the methodology of my colleague of 25 years, Charles Ruhl, I decided to give my hypothesis an
empirical test by applying my analysis to those cited sentences in the OED articles on –ing1 and –ing2 that were
Broderick page 8
said to contain either “gerunds” or “present participles.” On the second sheet of your handout (two panels per
side) you will find adapted reprints of the OED entries for the three –ing suffixes. I have printed all cited
sentences in these entries in boldface type. Some of those sentences exemplify –ing forms that are derived nouns
or derived adjectives; these, though in boldface are in the same size type font as the text of the articles. However,
those cited sentences (several dozen) that are presented as containing either “gerunds” (in the entry for –ing1) or
“present participles” (in the entry for –ing2) are not only in boldface type but in a type size significantly larger
than the surrounding type.
Although both space and time limitations prevent me from including additional diagrams in this paper, my
analyses of those sentences have verified that the –ing form (whether “gerund” or “present participle”) occupies
an initial PREDICATER position in an –ing participle clause, and that the complements of that PREDICATER
are, in principle, the same in each type of clause.
Interestingly, a set of sentences given toward the end of the entry for –ing1, require (within the systemic
linguistic perspective) an additional functional position for -ing clauses besides the three I describes above
(HEAD or POST MODIFIER in a noun phrase, or CLAUSE COMPLEMENT) For example, take a look at a
sentence beginning eight lines from the end of section two of the entry for –ing1: But who ever heard of them
eating an owl? (It’s about two-thirds of the way from the top of the left panel on the back of the handout.) The
OED treats such sentences as implied possessives (But who ever heard of their eating an owl), even while
acknowledging that constructions such as these date back to 1600 and are now quite common in spoken English.
(Classical transformational grammar, of course, treated both the pronoun version and the possessive article
version of such sentences as deep structure subjects that have undergone one of the versions of what was once
called the nominalization transformation.) In the sentence But who ever heard of them eating an owl? I analyze
the –ing participle clause as standing in apposition to the pronoun, and sharing with it the functional position of
OBJECT OF A PREPOSITION. Such a construction can also occur in sentences such as I don’t like them eating
an owl. In this case the pronoun them functions as DIRECT OBJECT, and the –ing participle clause eating an
owl functions as OBJECT COMPLEMENT. Again, the relevant point is that there are no clause-internal (i.e.,
formal) distinctions between so-called “gerunds” and “present participles”; all differences can be explained in
Broderick page 9
terms of the functional position of the clause within which the –ing form appears. And so, I think it is reasonable
to conclude that “gerunds” and “present participles” are indeed “monosyntactic,” -- that both can be classed
together as –ing participles. But are they monosemic?
In posing this question (and indeed having the audacity in my title to imply that I might actually answer it) I
may have stepped somewhat beyond my area of research competence. But I have done so not only because I
believe that –ing forms probably are monosemic but also to describe what I think Charles Ruhl would expect me
to do (at the very least) in setting out to answer the question (cf. Ruhl, 1989). This, I know, is the least that he
would do. For starters, Charles Ruhl would consult the entry of every one of the hundreds of –ing forms cited in
the three OED entries that I have included in your handout (not just those cited as “gerunds” and “present
participles” but also those cited as derived “nouns” and “adjectives”; knowing him, he wouldn’t even exclude –
ing3 at the outset!). He would copy every example sentence from every entry onto a 3 x 5 inch index card. After
assembling what would then surely be thousands of index cards, he would read them assiduously, think about
them, carefully reflecting on his own intuitions about meaning and also examining the syntactic patterns within
which those forms occur. And he would read every work of relevant research that he could get his hands on.
Only then would he begin formulating hypotheses to compare with claims made in the OED and other
dictionaries. While doing all of this, he would tune his antennae, in his own daily experience with language, to
sentences containing –ing forms that occur in daily conversational interaction or in the hundreds of pages he reads
in any week. And he would write those sentences on data index cards as well. For Charles Ruhl, there is never a
point at which he has enough of those data cards. But there does come a point when he can arrange those cards in
such a way that if you or I began reading them from the beginning, the first cards might contain –ing forms that
are obviously derived nouns (forms like wedding, meeting, blessing). Soon, you might be reading sentences that
clearly contain “gerunds,” but you would be hard-pressed to point out just which card marks the transition from
derived noun to “gerund.” And the rich set of data would similarly make it difficult to transition from “gerund”
sentence to “present participle” sentences and then to sentences with derived adjectives such as cunning, willing,
daring, and hulking (see the end of the entry for –ing2 on the right-hand panel on the back of the handout). In
short, you would have an existential experience of the monosemy of the forms.
Broderick page 10
I have a strong suspicion that the meaning of –ing in all four types of forms can be characterized with a
semantic feature term such as “action.” I would like to call it the “action” inflectional suffix in contrast to –en,
which I would like to call the “state” inflectional suffix. But I have a long way to go to make my case with the
thoroughness and authority of a Charles Ruhl. In my future research on this and other issues, I am especially
blessed to have Charlie as my colleague at Old Dominion University, a colleague whose conversations, over the
years, on virtually any linguistic topic have invariably been as stimulating, creative, and memorable as any book
or article by the supposed experts on whatever the subject might have been. For those past and future
conversations, as well as for his friendship, I thank him most sincerely. And I thank all of you for your kind
attention to my remarks today.
REFERENCES
Broderick, John P. 2000. Modern English Grammar: A Functional Linguistic Analysis. (A book in progress.
An earlier version of part of this manuscript is posted at the following address on the Internet:
<
http://web.odu.edu/al/jpbroder/meg.html>.)
The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, Volume 1. The Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1971, p. 1434.
Greenbaum, Sidney. 1996. The Oxford English Grammar. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of
the English Language. London and New York: Longman.
Ruhl, Charles. 1989. On Monosemy: A Study in Linguistic Semantics. Albany: State University of New York
Press.