This paper examines the process whereby the English gerund, originally an abstract deverbal noun of action, was reinterpreted as part of the verb system and acquired verbal properties, such as the ability to govern a direct object (e.g., by writing a letter). The analysis of the data reveals that by Early Middle English some gerundial patterns had become structurally ambiguous and thus served as the basis for the reanalysis of a nominal category as a verbal one. The actualization (Timberlake 1977) of the innovated underlying structure at the observable level of language use is also discussed, as are the implications of the changes undergone by the gerund for current views of grammaticalization as the main mechanism of syntactic change.
2024. Corpus linguistics meets historical linguistics and construction grammar: how far have we come, and where do we go from here?. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 20:3 ► pp. 481 ff.
Li, Bingru & Bingjun Yang
2024.
A Corpus-Based Study of Nominalizations in the Sports News of
Shanghai Gazette
(1919–1920)
. WORD 70:1 ► pp. 44 ff.
2020. Individuality in syntactic variation: An investigation of the seventeenth-century gerund alternation. Cognitive Linguistics 31:2 ► pp. 279 ff.
García‐Castro, Laura
2020. Finite and non‐finite complement clauses in postcolonial Englishes. World Englishes 39:3 ► pp. 411 ff.
Egan, Thomas
2019. Non-representativeness in corpora: perils, pitfalls and challenges. CogniTextes 19:Volume 19
He, Qingshun
2019. Grammatical Metaphor in Clause Combining. In A Corpus-Based Approach to Clause Combining in English from the Systemic Functional Perspective [The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series, ], ► pp. 127 ff.
He, Qingshun
2020. A Corpus-based Study of Transfers in English Gerunds. In Corpus-based Approaches to Grammar, Media and Health Discourses [The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series, ], ► pp. 17 ff.
Heyvaert, Liesbet, Stefan Hartmann & Hubert Cuyckens
2019. Categorial shift: from description to theory and back again. Language Sciences 73 ► pp. 1 ff.
Maekelberghe, Charlotte
2019. The English gerund revisited. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 15:1 ► pp. 205 ff.
2019. Verbalization of nominalizations: A typological commentary on the article by Nikki van de Pol. Language Sciences 73 ► pp. 105 ff.
van de Pol, Nikki
2019. A game of give and take: category change on the border between adverbial verbal gerunds and augmented absolutes in English. Language Sciences 73 ► pp. 91 ff.
2017. The aggregate and the individual: thoughts on what non-alternating authors reveal about linguistic alternations – a response to Petré. English Language and Linguistics 21:2 ► pp. 251 ff.
Fonteyn, Lauren
2018. Assessing theory with practice: an evaluation of two aspectual-semantic classification models of gerundive nominalizations. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 0:0
FONTEYN, LAUREN & NIKKI VAN DE POL
2016. Divide and conquer: the formation and functional dynamics of the Modern Englishing-clause network. English Language and Linguistics 20:2 ► pp. 185 ff.
Maekelberghe, Charlotte & Liesbet Heyvaert
2016. Indefinite Nominal Gerunds, or the Particularization of a Reified Event. English Studies 97:3 ► pp. 317 ff.
Fanego, Teresa
2015. Multiple Sources in Language Change: the Role of Free Adjuncts and Absolutes in the Formation of English ACC-ing Gerundives. In Perspectives on Complementation, ► pp. 179 ff.
2020. On the History of the English Progressive Construction Jane came whistling down the street. Journal of English Linguistics 48:4 ► pp. 319 ff.
Fonteyn, Lauren, Hendrik De Smet & Liesbet Heyvaert
2015. What It Means to Verbalize. Journal of English Linguistics 43:1 ► pp. 36 ff.
Fonteyn, Lauren, Liesbet Heyvaert & Charlotte Maekelberghe
2015. How do gerunds conceptualize events? A diachronic study. Cognitive Linguistics 26:4 ► pp. 583 ff.
Loureiro-Porto, Lucía
2010. A Review of Early English Impersonals: Evidence from Necessity Verbs. English Studies 91:6 ► pp. 674 ff.
Jendraschek, Gerd
2009. Origin and development of the Iatmul focus construction: Subordination, desubordination, resubordination. Folia Linguistica 43:2
Schlüter, Julia
2009. All Beginnings Are Light. Journal of English Linguistics 37:1 ► pp. 61 ff.
Van linden, An & Kristin Davidse
2009. The clausal complementation of deontic-evaluative adjectives in extraposition constructions: a synchronic-diachronic approach. FLIN 43:1 ► pp. 171 ff.
Heyvaert, Liesbet
2008. On the constructional semantics of gerundive nominalizations. Folia Linguistica 42:1-2
De Smet, Hendrik
2007. Nominal gerunds in 16th-century English. The function of the definite article. Folia Linguistica Historica 41:Historica vol. 28,1-2
DE SMET, HENDRIK
2008. Functional motivations in the development of nominal and verbal gerunds in Middle and Early Modern English. English Language and Linguistics 12:1 ► pp. 55 ff.
De Smet, Hendrik
2010. English -ing-clauses and their problems: The structure of grammatical categories. Linguistics 48:6
De Smet, Hendrik
2015. Participle clauses between adverbial and complement. <i>WORD</i> 61:1 ► pp. 39 ff.
KILLIE, KRISTIN
2007. On the history of verbal present participle converbs in English and Norwegian and the concept of 'change from below'. In Germanic Language Histories 'from Below' (1700-2000), ► pp. 149 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 november 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.