Nominal and verbal gerunds in

Present-day English.

Aspectual features
and nominal status.
Anouk Buyle – Liesbet Heyvaert – Charlotte Maekelberghe
Nominal gerunds or NGs
• Noun phrase distribution as well as internal noun
phrase syntax
• Dependents introduced by a preposition
• Adjectival modification
• Use of determiners, quantifiers
• Negation by no
• No marking for secondary tense or passive possible

e.g. The rejection of the' 80s is also an embracing of the

possibilities of the' 90s. (BNC)
e.g. (…) they were about to experience some harshening of their
conditions. (BNC)

2
Verbal gerunds or VGs
• Have the distributional potential of a noun phrase but
behave like clauses internally
• Direct object
• Adverbial modification
• Negation by not
• Possible marking for secondary tense and passive

e.g. there was a strong presumption against the court having made

an order (…). (BNC)
e.g. An encore function for instantly repeating the last ten seconds
of the scene you’ve just watched. (BNC)
e.g. electoral democracy can only survive by not tackling major
social injustices. (BNC)
3
Categorial shift and aspect
• Nominalization is typically accompanied by the loss of a
variety of clause-like features, e.g. tense, aspect, mood,
obligatory complements etc.

• Is said to lead to a loss of individuation and increasing

typification (Lehmann 1982, 1988)

• The further a nominalization is located on the noun-like

end of the nouniness squish, the likelier it is that it denotes
an entity “with spatial situatedness and temporal
vagueness” (Lehmann 1982, transl.)

4
An aspectual approach to gerunds?
• The semantic labels assigned to gerunds seem aspectual
in nature, but they are vague and often ill-defined: 'action'
and 'fact' (introduced by Lees 1968 [1960]) or 'activity',
'act', 'event', 'process' (e.g. Fraser 1970; Grimshaw 1990; Huddleston &
Pullum 2002)

• Quirk et al. (1985): compared to other derived NOMs, NGs

zoom in on “the conduct of the action itself” (1551) or on
an “activity that is in process” (1292), rather than on “the
action as a whole event, including its completion” (1551).
• Bartsch 1981; Brinton 1991 and 1995: -ing as aspectual
marker, i.e. as imperfectivizing suffix

5
An aspectual approach to gerunds? (2)
• Brinton (1998: 48) argues that -ing “does not seem to
preserve the aktionsart of the verb”, and “has the effect of
converting a situation into an activity, i.e. of making the
situation durative, atelic, and dynamic”.

o -ing occurs “most naturally with activities, which are shown as

ongoing”;
o with punctual event verbs, -ing “has the effect of reiterating the
event, making the situation durative”;
o with achievements and accomplishments, “the gerund form
focuses on the process leading up to the endpoint”.

6
Preliminary remarks
“I will ignore the effect of nominal arguments and temporal
adverbials on aktionsart, as well as the effect of noun
modifiers on countability” (Brinton 1998: 46-47) - BUT
• Difficult to view a situation as inherently (a)telic or
(un)bounded (Depraetere 1995:10);
• It is the presence of arguments and modifiers that allows
us to distinguish between NGs and VGs;
• Essential to study the interplay between the original
verbal form of the gerund, including its participants, and
the aspectual mechanisms available in the nominal
paradigm that gerunds have become part of.

7
Research questions
(1) Can -ing be said to have particular aspectual value, i.e.
to have a characteristic aspectual impact on the inherent
aspect or Aktionsart of the base VP in PDE gerunds?
o Which situation types are NGs/VGs based on
(inherent/ontological/situation aspect or Aktionsart)?
o How are these situations viewed in NGs and VGs
(viewpoint aspect)?

(2) Are the different positions of NGs and VGs on the

‘nouniness squish’ reflected in their aspectual behaviour?

8
Overview

• Methodology and parameters

• Findings
• Conclusions

9
Methodology/corpus
• 250 NGs & 250 VGs from BNC (100 million words; 1980s-
1993);
o NGs: *ing.[n*] of; yields 61,528 hits; random selection of 250
instances
o VGs: [v?g*]; yields 1,550,610 instances; random selection of 250
instances
• Type/token sampling (cf. Tagliamonte 2012, Wolfram 1969: 58):
o Max. 3 tokens per type to prevent highly frequent items from
skewing the data (e.g. opening, handling)
• Not considered:
o Fully lexicalized instances: e.g. meeting, feeling
o Ambiguous instances: e.g. Cold sweat, shaking, feeling faint...
sounds more like an aversion to Billy Connolly (…). (BNC)
10
o Participial uses: e.g. wake up feeling refreshed
 Situation aspect

Static Dynamic
States
representing an
alchemical Durative Non-durative
process; holding
a position
Transitional Non-transitional
Achievements Semelfactives
the signing of the kicking the ball;
agreement; the clicking of the
receiving the mouse
report

11
 Situation aspect

Static Dynamic
States

Durative Non-durative
Achievements Semelfactives

Telic Atelic
Accomplishments Activities
the building of the the recycling of
bridge; plastic; working all
creating an account day

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Situation aspect – levels of analysis
• “Situation type is conveyed by the verb constellation, which I define as
a main verb and its arguments, including subject” (Smith 1997: 2)
o Including adverbial complements:

e.g. Mary walked in the park (atelic – activity) vs. Mary walked to school
(telic – accomplishment) [locative comp]
o Taking into account the impact of the quantity of the nominal
arguments:
e.g. Edward smoked many cigarettes (atelic - activity) vs. Edward smoked a
cigarette. (telic - accomplishment)
e.g. He noticed a/the mistake (punctual-achievement) vs. He noticed
numerous mistakes (punctual notice becomes durative activity through
unspecified plural count noun numerous mistakes, which creates a durative
hypersituation) vs. He noticed six mistakes (durative hypersit- accomplishment)

13
Viewpoint aspect – categories
• Bounded vs. unbounded (‘t-boundedness’)
bounded  an action or situation that is finished, whether it has a
natural endpoint that has been reached, or simply terminates
(Croft 2012)
unbounded  an action or situation that is represented as ongoing

• e.g. This reaffirmation of Hanoi's scheme was given despite

the lobbying of the Thai Foreign Minister, Sitthi Sawtsila [NG – bounded]
• e.g. Finally, we've even revolutionized the way your 605 is cared for, by
creating Lioncare Gold. [VG – bounded]
• e.g. The contemporary flowering of these ideas can be found in man-
machine control systems. [NG – unbounded]
• e.g. This Update also includes an article on the restructuring of the
SCOTVEC verification system. [NG – indeterminate]
14
Iterativity – repetitiveness
• Repetitive/iterative vs. non-repetitive aspect

• e.g. … having recovered from the damage to its economy

caused by the closing of the Strome Ferry. [NG – non-repetitive]
• e.g. The intragranular pores probably formed in response to
the flushing of the rocks by freshwater during phases of
exposure. [NG – iterative/repetitive; plural direct object]
• e.g. The shrine to Mary at Knock, the annual climbing of Croagh
Patrick, pilgrimage and penance at Lough Derg. [NG – repetitive;
adverb]
• e.g. He heard a sudden great beating of wings and like passing
royalty an eagle swooped low across the trees. [NG – iterative;
verb semantics]

15
Iterativity – repetitiveness
• Repetitive/iterative vs. non-repetitive aspect

• e.g. And his position has never fully recovered in spite of

winning a new term in the March 1988 presidential election. [VG
– non-repetitive]
• e.g. Others concentrated on setting up enterprise boards,
outside the council itself. [VG – iterative/repetitive; plural direct
object]
• e.g. It was not possible to know from the data available whether
this was the defendants' choice or magistrates declining to try
them. [VG – iterative/repetitive; plural subject]

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Viewpoint aspect in gerunds?

! Viewpoint aspect is often “a question of interpretation

rather than representation”, i.e. the meaning “is only
implicated (i.e. invited for pragmatic reasons)” and can as
such “be cancelled by the context” (Declerck 2006: 73)

17
Findings (1) – Situation aspect with -ing

“The -ing suffix occurs most naturally with activities, which are
shown as ongoing” (Brinton 1995: 34)
e.g. the parallel rise of both nations leads to sharpening of differences [NG]
e.g. we really appreciate this woman doing the right thing [VG]

Findings?
1. Activities constitute the largest group of situation aspect (65% with
NGs, 53% with VGs)

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Situation aspect with -ing
Situation/Ontological Aspect
100% 6 9

90%

80%

70% 132
162
60%

50%

40%
37
30%
43
20%
72
10%
39
0%
NG VG

SEM_ACH ACC ACT STATE

19
Situation aspect with -ing

• ! only when we include nominal arguments in our

analysis, e.g. “the building of royal palaces was brought to
an end”;
• Activities in Brinton’s sense (homogeneous events like run
or sleep) are not overwhelmingly well-represented (22%
with NGs, 25% with VGs).

20
-ing activities
180
• Majority of NG and
160 VG activities are
140 repetitive rather
120
than
homogeneous
100
• Significantly more
80
NG activities than
60 VG activities
40 (p=0,008)
20
• Significantly more
0
repetitive NG
NG VG
activities (p=0,012)
Homogeneous Repetitive
21
Viewpoint aspect with -ing
• The majority of both NGs and VGs lacks explicit markers
of ‘completeness’ or ‘ongoingness’: 63% of NGs and 80 %
of VGs were coded as ‘indeterminate’;
• 20% of NGs vs. 14 % of VGs were marked as completed
or bounded;
• 14.4 % of NGs vs. 6 % of VGs were marked as
unbounded

22
 Viewpoint aspect with -ing
Viewpoint Aspect (Boundedness)
100% 1

90%

80%

70%
165
60% 203

50%

40%

30%
36
20%
15
10% 49
32
0%
NG VG

Bounded (P=0,039) BOUNDED UNBOUNDED INDET #REF!

Unbounded (P=0,0019)
23
Indeterminate (P<0,0001)
Viewpoint aspect with activities

Viewpoint aspect with activities

180

160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0
NG VG

BOUNDED UNBOUNDED INDET

24
Findings (2) – Progressive-like effects?
“With punctual event verbs, the -ing suffix has the effect of
reiterating the event, making the situation durative” (Brinton
1995: 34) cp. Someone’s tapping on the window.

Findings?
• Mostly the case with ‘prototypical’ semelfactives in the case of NGs,
e.g. “the flashing of their torchlights”
• However: can be overruled, e.g. “The Kurd, whom she had expected
to flee at the first shaking of the ground”
• Iterativity is not found with VGs:
o ??The torchlights’ flashing  unlikely alternate
o No default iterative interpretation, e.g. “But Jolosa was booked in
the first half for kicking goalie25 Mark Davies”
Findings (3) – Telic VPs
“With both achievements and accomplishments, the gerund
form focuses on the process leading up to the end-point”
(Brinton 1995: 34)

Findings?
• Only very infrequently, when achievements or
accomplishments occur in clearly unbounded contexts,
e.g. “The more stable member of the partnership listened impassively
to my reading of the letter”
• Durativity-effects should be attributed to contextual
factors rather than to inherent aspectual value of -ing suffix

26
Research questions
(1) Can -ing be said to have particular aspectual value, i.e.
to have a characteristic aspectual impact on the inherent
aspect or Aktionsart of the base VP in PDE gerunds?
o Which situation types are NGs/VGs based on
(inherent/ontological/situation aspect or Aktionsart)?
o How are these situations viewed, i.e. which viewpoint
aspect is realized in NGs and VGs?

(2) Are the different positions of NGs and VGs on the

‘nouniness squish’ reflected in their aspectual behaviour?

27
-ing as aspectual marker?
1. -ing in gerunds does not preferably combine with
homogeneous Activities (cf. sleep, run, work)

Instead:
 Repetitive activities created through plural nominal
arguments form the largest group, both among NGs and
VGs;
 Achievements and Accomplishments are well-
represented;
 States are scarcely attested.

28
-ing as aspectual marker? (2)
2. The suggestion that -ing systematically imposes a
particular aspectual profile (i.e. durative, atelic, dynamic)
on its source VP seems to be an overgeneralization.

Instead:
 The majority of Achievement and Accomplishment base
verbs maintain their original aspectual features;
 Durativity-effects, although infrequent, can be attributed
to external contextual features rather than the -ing
suffix.

29
-ing as aspectual marker? (3)
3. -ing is not systematically associated with ‘ongoingness’

 We find more gerunds that are marked as ‘bounded’

than as ‘unbounded’;
 A large majority of gerunds is indeterminate in terms of
the viewpoint that is taken on the nominalized event.

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-ing as aspectual marker? (4)

• -ing itself has no aspectual import, it merely has

atemporalizing value and forms an atemporal situation
type or template (cf. Heyvaert 2003; De Smet 2010; De
Smet & Heyvaert 2011);
• De Smet (2010:1169) defines atemporalization as
“temporal and aspectual neutralization, with the effect of lifting a
clausal event to the level of type-space and of forcing its specificities as
an event token to be derived exclusively from the lexicogrammatical
context in which it is used (e.g., through inferred relations of control,
temporal relatedness to the matrix clause, etc.).”

31
Research questions
(1) Can -ing be said to have particular aspectual value, i.e. to
have a characteristic aspectual impact on the inherent aspect
or Aktionsart of the base VP in PDE gerunds?
o Which situation types are NGs/VGs based on
(inherent/ontological/situation aspect or Aktionsart)?
o How are these situations viewed, i.e. which viewpoint
aspect is realized in NGs and VGs (viewpoint aspect)?

(2) Are the different positions of NGs and VGs on the

‘nouniness squish’ reflected in their aspectual behaviour?

32
Aspect in NGs vs. VGs

1. General differences in situation and viewpoint aspect

• Significantly more Activities with NGs (p=0.0006)
• Significantly more Achievements/Semelfactives with
VGs (p=0.0003)
• Significant viewpoint differences among NGs and VGs:

• VGs are significantly more ‘indeterminate’ (p<0.001)

• Significantly more bounded NGs (p=0,039)
• Significantly more unbounded NGs (p=0,0019)

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Aspect in NGs vs. VGs (2)
Situation/Ontological Aspect
100% 6 9

90%

80%

70% 132
163
60%

50%

40%
37
30%
43
20%
72
10%
39
0%
NG VG

SEM_ACH ACC ACT STATE

34
 Aspect in NGs vs. VGs (3)
Viewpoint Aspect (Boundedness)
100% 1

90%

80%

70%
165
60% 203

50%

40%

30%
36
20%
15
10% 49
32
0%
NG VG

Bounded (P=0,039) BOUNDED UNBOUNDED INDET #REF!

Unbounded (P=0,0019) 35
Indeterminate (P<0,0001)
Aspect in NGs vs. VGs (4)
2. Repetitiveness and iterativity are found significantly
more often with NGs than with VGs (p=0.0016)

o Mainly due to the effect of plural, non-countable direct

objects:
e.g. There are also other news agencies which specialise in
the reporting of news and the supplying of features to the press.
o NGs are thus more likely to represent temporally vague
‘hypersituations’, while VGs more frequently represent
single, individuated events

36
Aspect in NGs vs. VGs (5)

3. Some NGs have completely lost their aspectual dimension

and instead function as fixed temporal anchor points, viz.
‘historic NGs’ (Fonteyn 2014):

e.g. the signing of the Franco-German treaty in January 1963

37
Aspect in NGs vs. VGs (5)
4. NGs fully exploit the mechanisms that are available within
the nominal paradigm to manipulate the aspectual
representation of a situation
o Use of the indefinite article (Maekelberghe & Heyvaert
forthc.):
• Background the iterativity of a situation: “a wringing of hands”
• Individuate/particularize a situation: “it implies (…) a
skilful marrying of the two”
o Use of adjectival modification:
• Create durativity: “his relentless checking of the boy's condition”
• Create repetitiveness: “the annual climbing of Croagh Patrick”

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Aspect in NGs vs. VGs (6)
Nominal gerunds Verbal gerunds
• More Activities • More Achiev./Semelf.
• More hypersituations • More single/individual
• More explicitly events
bounded/unbounded • More indeterminate in
• Historic events viewpoint
• Nominal aspectual tools

Supports Lehmann’s (1982, 1988) claim that less nominalized constructions

are likelier to retain some of the individuation of the original State of Affairs

Nominal gerunds show some specialization in more temporally vague, atelic,

ongoing events, but make use of nominal tools to enrich aspectual options.
Categorial shift and aspect

• Aspectual import of a suffix vs. aspectual impact of

lexicogrammatical and broader discourse context;
o Categorial shift, and the functional reconfiguration that accompanies it,
does not take place in isolation, i.e., it is not restricted to the input of the
nominalizing suffix or the NP itself;
o It involves a complex interplay of base-verb elements, NP-internal
elements and contextual elements that each contribute to a certain
functional dimension in their own way.
• From basic aspectual categories (situation aspect;
viewpoint aspect) to a more subtle, complex and flexible
aspectual model…

40
 Thank you.

Anouk.Buyle@kuleuven.be
Liesbet.Heyvaert@arts.kuleuven.be
Charlotte.Maekelberghe@kuleuven.be

41
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