# can we use articles before gerunds?



## olympics

Is it correct to say 'at the coming of night'. When can we use articles before gerunds and when we can't?


----------



## e2efour

_Coming_ here is really a noun rather than a gerund (verbal noun).
Could you give us a sentence to make your question clear?


----------



## olympics

The(?) day had been fine and warm; but at the(?) coming on of(?) night, the(?) air grew cool. (The articles aren't in the text, they've been inserted by me)


----------



## e2efour

We are not likely to say "at the coming on of night" since we have the nouns _coming/approach_, which are not gerunds.
Since a gerund is a verbal noun, the rules for articles are the same as for nouns.
Example: _The questioning of the witness was thorough_ (gerund) or _The interrogation of the witness_ (noun).


----------



## se16teddy

olympics said:


> Is it correct to say 'at the coming of night'. When can we use articles before gerunds and when we can't?


 We sometimes use articles before gerunds but to my taste it sounds too literary for most purposes. However,_ coming _is not a good example to choose, because the OED lists _coming _as a noun.


----------



## yakor

e2efour said:


> We are not likely to say "at the coming on of night" since we have the nouns _coming/approach_, which are not gerunds.
> .


But how are you likely to say it then? "With coming"? Do you use any article before the deverbal noun"coming" when it is used with "night"?


----------



## Sabretooth

yakor said:


> But how are you likely to say it then? "With coming"? Do you use any article before the deverbal noun"coming" when it is used with "night"?



I would say, "When night comes," rather than "coming of night." "Coming of night" sounds archaic.


----------



## e2efour

_At the coming of night_ is a literary way of saying _when night comes/came_, since _coming_ is a count noun (compare also _comings and goings_).
My objection was to _the coming on of night_ since a) we can replace this with a noun, as I said,  and b) it sounds unnatural to me.

(cross-posted with Sabretooth)


----------



## sdgraham

olympics said:


> When can we use articles before gerunds and when we can't?



Unless somebody can come up with an immutable "rule" that has escaped me, the answer, which is the same with many such questions, is "when it works."


----------



## e2efour

One common example is in definitions:
_The crowning of a king or queen is called a coronation.

_*NB* sometimes the -ing noun can be a verbal noun or a count noun (e.g. _christening, wedding_), which doesn't count for this thread!


----------



## bennymix

To Olympics:   Yes, there are rules governing (or at least describing) these situations  (nod to sdg   ) , but they are rather technical.
I will summarize them if there is any interest, or you can consult   http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~xtag/tech-report/tech-report.html


----------



## e2efour

This grammar includes these three examples of gerunds, where (a) and b) are called _determiner gerunds_:
a) Some think that *the selling of bonds* is beneficial.
b)* His painting of Mona Lisa* is highly acclaimed.
c) Are private markets approving of *Washington's bashing of Wall Street*? ​
But the interpretation of sentence b) as a gerund seems to me rather unlikely. It is surely a deverbal noun.

Perhaps you could tell those of us who are not familiar with this grammar what its purpose is and why it uses old-fashioned terms like gerund? What is its definition of a gerund?


----------



## yakor

e2efour said:


> _At the coming of night_ is a literary way of saying _when night comes/came_, since _coming_ is a count noun (compare also _comings and goings_).


You mean that "the coming of night" is OK, not "coming of night"? The article "the" is  used in this case?


e2efour said:


> My objection was to _the coming on of night_ since a) we can replace this with a noun, as I said,  and b) it sounds unnatural to me.


I don't understand the phrase  _"the coming on of night_". What does it mean at all?


----------



## e2efour

_At the coming of night_ = when night comes. The article must be used with the -ing form  (here a deverbal noun).

We say _night is coming on_, meaning that it is drawing near or approaching. I don't think we would say _the coming on of night _for the reasons I gave in #8.


----------



## yakor

e2efour said:


> One common example is in definitions:
> _The crowning of a king or queen is called a coronation._


_
__In this case the word "coronation" and "crowning" are countable?
_*


e2efour said:



			NB
		
Click to expand...

*


e2efour said:


> sometimes the -ing noun can be a verbal noun or a count noun (e.g. _christening, wedding_), which doesn't count for this thread!


NB? what is it? What do you whant to say in this post?


----------



## bennymix

Regarding the XTAG research group at U. Penn., and its detailed grammar:

http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~xtag/tech-report/tech-report.html


  (I am paraphrasing, but using their examples, slightly modified)

  I don’t like their terminology, but their basic classification echoes that of other linguists,
  such as Lees.  I will use more transparent terminology, which they mention.

  They say there are two types of gerundives, nominal*** (determiner) (299, 304)  and sentential (NP) (315, 316).   Nominal ones refer to a fact, whereas sentential ones refer to an action or way of doing something.

  (299)   Some think that *the selling of bonds* is beneficial. 
  (304) [[The proving of the theorem proved very costly, in respect of time.]]



  (315)  ...John does not like *wearing a hat*.   
  (317)   Mother disapproved of *me wearing such casual clothes*.  

  Here, then, is THE RULE (*relevant to the question of the OP***):
Nominal and sentential gerundives have the syntax of nouns and verbs, respectively.  Only nominal (304, 306)  take articles and adjectives. Only sentential (311, 315) can have adverbs.


  304     [[The proving of the theorem proved very costly, in respect of time.]]
  306     John’s rapid writing of the book caused it to contain many errors.


  311  [[His writing the book rapidly caused many errors to appear in it.]]
               315  John does not like wearing a hat.

==
**NOTE  The *OP*, of course, gave us neither a full sentence, nor a context or intended meaning. But, regarding
the phrase* 'at the coming of night'*, we form the sentence, regarding an army, surrounded by enemy troups, for whom things look grim:  "At the eventual coming of night, the enemy troups faded away into the forest."
That sentence has 'coming' as what the above writers and others call, 'nominal gerundive.'

***  The more common phrasing (word order), now, is 'gerundive nominal' and it's hardly uncommon or obsolete.  

http://books.google.ca/books?id=xdMhAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16
_Studies on Semantics..._, by Chomsky, 1972., p. 15.

The descrepancies between derived and gerundive nominals calls for an explanation.
[Example] 10.  John's being eager to please [[was his downfall.]]
[Followed by long discussion of the matter]

I really don't want to dispute labels.  The word order, above, was meant to clarify.

Current usage, see also, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07268609408599500#.UglfTX_4Ixs


----------



## e2efour

_Coronation: count noun
Crowning: verbal noun

_NB (see dictionary definition 2) is an abbreviation you should know (_should_ = it's a good idea). We use this (and also _Note._) when we make an important comment.

(I meant that _christening_ and _wedding_ are deverbal nouns. Why then is _crowning_ not a deverbal? Probably because it doesn't occur very often, whereas _christenings_ and _weddings_ are taking place all the time.)


----------



## yakor

e2efour said:


> We say _night is coming on_, meaning that it is drawing near or approaching. I don't think we would say _the coming on of night _for the reasons I gave in #8.


But maybe, you would say,"At coming on of night"? OR maybe, "At night's coming on"?OR "At night coming on"? The gerunds could be modifired by possesive nouns and noun adjectives, couldn't it?


----------



## e2efour

Your reference is very interesting, bennymix. 
But what is the purpose of this grammar? To teach computers to speak or analyse English?

I suspect modern-day grammarians (who are a different breed from linguists) would turn over in their graves if they saw _gerundive_ again! Not even Fowler admits the use of this term where English grammar is concerned.


----------



## yakor

e2efour said:


> _Coronation: count noun
> Crowning: verbal noun_


_
If something1=something2, and something 2 is countable, then something 1 is countable too.
_


----------



## yakor

e2efour said:


> NB (see dictionary definition 2) is an abbreviation you should know (_should_ = it's a good idea). We use this (and also _Note._) when we make an important comment.


Noun verb=NB?
Why should=it's a good idea??
NB=note what? I don't understand you.


----------



## e2efour

yakor said:


> But maybe, you would say,"At coming on of night"? OR maybe, "At night's coming on"?OR "At night coming on"? The gerunds could be modifired by possesive nouns and noun adjectives, couldn't it?


You would not say "at coming on of night" with _the._ But you could use possessive pronouns or nouns (see _Washington's bashing_ in post #12) or adjectives, e.g. _the slow thawing during the winter_). (I don't know what you mean by _noun adjective._)


----------



## yakor

e2efour said:


> You would not say "at coming on of night" with _the._ But you could use possessive pronouns or nouns (see _Washington's bashing_ in post #12) or adjectives, e.g. _the slow thawing during the winter_). (I don't know what you mean by _noun adjective._)


But I meant "at coming on of night" without "THE" before -ing form! "noun adjective" (or adjectival noun?) is an adjective formed from a noun or the noun that is used as an adjective.


----------



## e2efour

yakor said:


> _If something1=something2, and something 2 is countable, then something 1 is countable too._


_The melting of the ice in spring is called the thaw. _Melting is a verbal noun, not a deverbal noun _(thaw_).
Language does not work like mathematics!



yakor said:


> Noun verb=NB?
> Why should=it's a good idea??
> NB=note what? I don't understand you.



"You should know what NB means" can mean that I expect you know it. But _should_ can mean it's a good idea to understand this abbreviation (which is in the forum dictionary).

Note: The forum dictionary can be accessed at the top of the page.



yakor said:


> But I meant "at coming on of night" without "THE"  before -ing form! "noun adjective" (or adjectival noun?) is an adjective  formed from a noun or the noun that is used as an adjective.



That's what I thought you meant. I said you can't say it without _the._

As for adjectives formed from nouns (e.g.“doubtful”). I don’t know what you are thinking of in relation to gerunds.


----------



## bennymix

Hi e2e

You said,

//You would not say "at coming on of night" with _the._ But you could use possessive pronouns or nouns (see _Washington's bashing_ in post #12) or adjectives, e.g. _the slow thawing during the winter_). (I don't know what you mean by _noun adjective._)                 //

I have no problem with "At the coming on of night, I sneaked out of the house."   I don't see why 'on' makes any difference.   You are fine with "At the coming of night," aren't you?  Similarly, I'm happy with, "At the setting in of night, I made my escape."

Just a note as to terminology for all readers.  The labels I used are not those of e2e.   e2e wants to speak of deverbal nouns, and that's a wide term, applying to words like organization.   Further complicating the matter is that 'coming' in the OP, does have a separate dictionary entry (n.), so it's NOT like a standard gerund;   hence the question of *articles for gerunds* gets confused.  Completely deverbalized nouns routinely and by definition, almost, take articles and adjectives.  They act entirely like nouns. 

Unfortunately the term is broad enough to encompass sentences like "Loud shouting makes me angry"  (Wiki example).   Such a deverbal instance, I've called gerundive nominal, one of two basic types (i.e., A).

It seems that e2e wishes to restrict gerunds to what I called 'sentential gerundives', which restriction I find rather odd.  Because sentential gerundives have verb like qualities, they take adverbs, never articles.   This seems to be e2e's position, then as far as I can make out:  

'gerunds' don't take articles.  any 'ing' forms that (seemingly)do, are 'deverbal'. e2e, for any counter example, e.g. "The setting in of night brought me relief" has to say (I surmise) either it's illegitimate, or that, for example, 'setting in' is 'deverbal'.

My position is that there are two types of gerunds, defined as -ing forms, directly, in context, related to verbs, which serve as nouns.  (If any term (noun) is 'deverbal' --has its own dictionary entry--it's excluded from discussion.)

The first (A) type of ing forms act, syntactically as nouns;  the second (B) type as verbs.
Examples: A:  John's rapid penning of the letter caused it to be filled with errors.
B) His penning the letter rapidly, left John some time to walk his dog.

The OP's example, is susceptible to being called 'deverbal,' hence I say, Sure it takes 'the' but *that does not answer the OP's question *about gerunds*.*   One has to change it just slightly (to get an 'ing' form not in the dictionary as a noun), _to answer his question about gerunds_.  "At the setting in of night, I made my escape."  Here the gerund takes a 'the' because it's type A) (gerundive nominal, determiner, whatever).


----------



## yakor

e2efour said:


> _The melting of the ice in spring is called the thaw. _Melting is a verbal noun, not a deverbal noun _(thaw_).


But you tell that all deverbal nouns are countable. "the thaw" is not countable. It is the noun of action. The nouns of action are uncountable.
Also,  one can use the phrase "the melting of" only because "melting" is an  intransitive gerund. If it were from "the Sun was melting the ice" where  the "ice" is an object, you wouldn't use "of". Ice in "the melting of  the ice" is the part of the subject, not the object. Ice itself is  melting.  I think there is only confusion when the-ing word is formed  from the intransitive verb, when the gerund is much of the noun than the  verb. The "of" shows the "ice" itself does the action. This action is  itself. Some "belonging". 

  But _should_ can mean it's a good idea to understand this abbreviation (which is in the forum dictionary).

I'm not sure that I get what you mean by " But _should_ can mean it's a good idea to understand this abbreviation (which is in the forum dictionary)"


----------



## yakor

e2efour said:


> That's what I thought you meant. I said you can't say it without _the._
> 
> As for adjectives formed from nouns (e.g.“doubtful”). I don’t know what you are thinking of in relation to gerunds.


But what does "at the coming on of the night" mean?
I don't mean these adjectives at all. I mean the adjectivals, the nouns that are used before other nouns and modify them. (car windows, count nouns) (car and count are nouns, but they are the adjectival, that modify "windows" and" nouns". These nouns could be only attributive adjectives. I don't know how they are called.


----------



## e2efour

Hi bennymix

There is a slight problem of terminology.

First of all, I think it most unfortunate that some sources confuse deverbal and verbal nouns. There is no such confusion in, for example, Quirk et al. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language.
So let us rule out purely deverbal –ing nouns, most of which are count nouns and behave just like any other noun (example: _building_). Some –ing nouns can be either deverbal or verbal (_killing, shooting_), depending on the context.

Verbal -ing nouns can often be preceded by _the_, adjectives, adverbs, possessive pronouns, among other parts of speech.
Examples: _the pointless questioning of the suspect, his illegal painting of the house._ The latter _could_ be regarded as deverbal _painting_ or the verbal –ing form (more likely). 
Some –ing forms, on the other hand, are used in a purely verbal way: _he kept on shouting._

_The coming on of night_ is a verbal noun. I don’t find it very natural, even though it was used by Shakespeare. Again I find _the setting in of the night_ an old-fashioned expression, which is something we can disagree about. However, these literary –ing verbal nouns are used with the definite article. So that answers the OP’s question.

I am not trying to restrict “gerunds” in any way, except to exclude deverbal nouns. All -ing forms then describe what are traditionally called gerunds or participles.
I refuse to use the term _gerundive_ since it has nothing to do with English. I don’t think a grammarian would use such a term nowadays (what a linguist would use is another matter). Nor do I find it useful to use the term _gerund_ since people disagree about whether something is a gerund or a participle.

I do not deny that _John's rapid penning of the letter_ is a noun (but not a deverbal noun according to my definition). _His penning the letter rapidly _is not a verbal noun, it’s a verbal –ing form. _His penning of the letter_ would be a verbal noun.

Regarding your computerised Xtag grammar, I can’t comment since I know little about computational linguistics. But I don’t think that it would of any help to learners of English, given its demanding and occasional use of old-fashioned terminology.


----------



## bennymix

Yakor, I think the issue of countability of certain nouns is another wrinkle in the original problem, but it's not the main issue here.  Both countable and uncountable nouns can take 'the',  and so regardless of whether 'melting' (or 'coming') is countable, the issue of using 'the' *with a gerund* can arise. (Of course indefinite articles don't go with uncountable nouns.)

Likewise, the class of all deverbal nouns is not under discussion, and the issue of which, if any, are countable, uncountable, etc is neither here nor there.   I cannot find where e2e said, as you claim, that all deverbals are uncountable, but the discussion is of gerunds, not 'organizations' 'coronations' or 'thaws.'

Yakor to e2e: _ But you tell_[sic]_ that all deverbal nouns are countable_.


----------



## yakor

bennymix said:


> I cannot find where e2e said, as you claim, that all deverbals are uncountable, but the discussion is of gerunds, not 'organizations' 'coronations' or 'thaws.'
> 
> Yakor to e2e: _ But you tell_[sic]_ that all deverbal nouns are countable_.


Read the post #33 http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2680585
A deverbal noun is a count noun (often ending in -ing) formed from a verb (e.g. discovery. building). (Unfortunately some people call such nouns verbal nouns.)
What does [sic] mean in your quote?


----------



## bennymix

You ignore my main point:  the 'countability' of deverbals is not the issue under discussion.


----------



## yakor

e2efour said:


> Since a gerund is a verbal noun, the rules for articles are the same as for nouns.


I disagree. "Reading the book was interesting" "Hearing this  melody was unpleasant"(hearing and reading are the verbal noun  (gerunds), but no article could be used before them, no rules for nouns  act, as well as for infinitives , that are so called nouns too. Gerunds  needn't determiners as well as infinitives. Also, I
 wouldn't call  gerunds  and infinitives the nouns. It is only confusing the learners.  You can't use  articles before the infinitives, even though they are   also the verbal nouns, as some say.


----------



## yakor

bennymix said:


> You ignore my main point:  the 'countability' of deverbals is not the issue under discussion.


You asked me, I answered you.
Among deverbals there are nouns that look like gerunds-participles. But they are not.


----------



## bennymix

Yakor, you're taking us in circles.   Some gerunds  (a particular class, I would argue) take "the" and some do not.
That is the premise of the discussion and was largely agreed on the first page, by several posters.

You also ignore my summary of the discussion with e23, in #25.  In a word, e2e apparently tends to say, of any examples of gerund having 'the', they are deverbal nouns, as in the OP's original example about the coming of night.   My own view is that those gerunds which are 'gerundive nominals' (determiner gerunds) are the ones with an array of nounal characteristics, taking articles, adjectives, etc.   I also hold that the character of 'deverbals nouns' is no longer relevant to the discussion;  they have wholly migrated from gerund territory, and show as noun entries in a dictionary.  So from their character it's iffy to infer to gerunds which haven't converted or migrated.

==
NOTE:  [sic] means  'this error is in the original being quoted.'   As in, _My child wrote me a note, saying,  "I lvoe [sic] you"_.


----------



## RM1(SS)

yakor said:


> What does [sic] mean in your quote?


It means exactly what the WR dictionary says it means.


----------



## yakor

bennymix said:


> Yakor, you're taking us in circles. .


It is you are taking me in circles. Gerunds is mostly the verb, it shows the action. It needn't determiners. If it could be a subject and an object in a sentence it doesn't mean that it is a noun. Don't confuse people. "verbal noun" sounds odd.


----------



## yakor

olympics said:


> Is it correct to say 'at the coming of night'. When can we use articles before gerunds and when we can't?


No. Articles are not used before verbs. "coming" is a noun, that is why it's OK to use the article.


----------



## yakor

se16teddy said:


> We sometimes use articles before gerunds but to my taste it sounds too literary for most purposes. However,_ coming _is not a good example to choose, because the OED lists _coming _as a noun.


As soon as you modify gerund by the article, it stops to be the verb and becomes only the noun, in contrary the gerund. That you can't see it in the dictionary doesn't mean that it could not be the noun.


----------



## yakor

e2efour said:


> *NB* sometimes the -ing noun can be a verbal noun or a count noun (e.g. _christening, wedding_), which doesn't count for this thread!


So confusing this statement! I would say, sometimes the -ing noun could be the countable or uncountable noun. When I  say ing noun, I don't mean the gerund. 
I mean only a noun with its properties. When I say "gerund" I mean the non-finite verb, that is used as an subject and as an object in a sentense as well as a noun.


----------



## e2efour

All this confusion can easily be avoided by using _the -ing form of the verb. _I also think that it is better to use _deverbal noun_ than to use _verbal noun_ to describe the noun made from the non-finite verb form we are talking about.
So what I said in post #39 (my quote) was that the deverbal noun can sometimes be a count noun (e.g. _building_) and sometimes a non-count noun (e.g. _clothing_).This type of noun should not form part of this discussion. If you don't use the term _deverbal_, you have to include such nouns in the discussion, although they share none of the properties of verbs. 

[Of course, by _deverbal nouns _I mean only deverbal nouns ending in -ing, which make up only some of the category of deverbal nouns.]

You seem to be saying that the verbal -ing form can be both countable and uncountable. I can think of an uncountable example:_ In football the deliberate tripping up of an opponent is against the rules. _Can you give me an example of a countable noun?

There is a problem of terminology here. The above example I call a _verbal_ _noun_ and not a _gerund _(as in _Deliberately tripping up an opponent_).


----------



## bennymix

It's really unfortunate that a bunch of us literate and reasonably intelligent folks cannot agree, enough, on a terminology that will allow coherent discussion of the topic, which makes any progress.

"-ing form of a verb" is commonly called its 'present participle'; SOME of these are used in a way which makes them--at least in olden times-- called 'gerunds'.   Neither present participles nor 'deverbal nouns' were the topic of this thread.


----------



## yakor

bennymix said:


> It's really unfortunate that a bunch of us literate and reasonably intelligent folks cannot agree, enough, on a terminology that will allow coherent discussion of the topic, which makes any progress.


Yes, I agree.



bennymix said:


> "-ing form of a verb" is commonly called its 'present participle';


 Yes, and the participles sometimes could be a gerunds. Gerunds are some kind of a participle.  


bennymix said:


> Neither present participles nor 'deverbal nouns' were the topic of this thread.


I disagree. In the original question there was given example of the phrase, that contains the deverbal (the noun that came from the verb by addition of the end "ing". Also, it was reminded about the gerund, that is a kind of a present participle. So, the asker asks about the gerunds, but uses the deverbal noun. In order to make the difference between them it is usefull to talk about deverbals.
Is it correct to say 'at the coming of night'. When can we use articles before gerunds and when we can't?


----------



## bennymix

One major problem is that 'deverbal noun' never got defined, between the broad usage and the narrower one, like mine (If it turns up with its own dictionary entry as noun, it's deverbal noun).  According to the broader use, what I just spoke of, is the _mostly lexicalized_, or _entirely (fully) lexicalized_ deverbal.

Because this issue was never settled, the question of 'treatment as noun', which is key to 'the' being allowed, never got properly addressed.   Obviously the fully lexicalized deverbal noun (-ing form) will take 'the'.   The question is whether these are counted as gerunds. (I've argued for 'no.')


----------



## lucas-sp

Danger!





bennymix said:


> "-ing form of a verb" is commonly called its 'present participle'; SOME of these are used in a way which makes them--at least in olden times-- called 'gerunds'.   Neither present participles nor 'deverbal nouns' were the topic of this thread.





yakor said:


> the participles sometimes could be a gerunds. Gerunds are some kind of a participle.


Let's not make the common error of believing that, just because two (or three) words are spelled and pronounced the same way, the two (or three) words are all the same word.

Gerunds are not participles. It just so happens _in English_ that gerunds and participles are spelled and pronounced the same. It is not correct to say either that "gerunds are participles used as nouns" or that "participles are gerunds used as modifiers." And often native speakers use these words in ways that clearly mark whether they are gerunds or participles, but not in all cases. Both gerunds and participles are part of the verb (they're _verbals_), so they're modified by adverbs, take direct objects, etc.

In English, we also use certain verb forms in ways that are difficult to conclusively describe as either being "gerunds" or "participles." Look at "singing" in "We kept on singing" - is it a gerund or a participle? Can you really figure it out? In this case, it seems that native speakers can use verb forms ending in -ing _without knowing and without needing to know_ whether they are gerunds or participles. For this reason, it seems descriptively and pedagogically useful to discuss, quite simply, "gerund-participles" or "the -ing form of the verb." Then we can say that: _a gerund is the gerund-participle/the -ing form of the verb used explicitly as a noun, while a participle is the gerund-participle/the -ing form of the verb used explicitly as a modifier._

In no way is a gerund a kind of participle, or vice-versa. Instead they are two separate functions of one verb form, the gerund-participle or -ing form of the verb.


----------



## lucas-sp

Just to follow up with a quick refresher on deverbals:

All verbs can turn into nouns through a process of _deverbalization_: "to step" becomes "one small step," "to analyze" becomes "analysis," "to anticipate" becomes "feverish anticipation." One very common form of deverbalization, to a lesser or greater degree, happens to gerunds. They can start acting less like verbal nouns at any time:

_The trio improvised jazzily = improvising jazzily (gerund) = the trio's jazzy improvising (more deverbal use of the gerund; notice change in adjective)_

Some people would say that "improvising" here is fully deverbal, but my semantic mind thinks that a deverbal only really becomes deverbal when it enters the language as a common noun in its own right. "A drawing" ( = "a sketch") is a good example. But gerunds are apt to lose their verbal character anyway, simply because they're used as nouns, so this small degree of deverbalization (taking articles, for instance) is _very common_​.


----------



## bennymix

Exactly, Lucas.  You favor a more narrow def'n of 'deverbal noun';   exclusion of the mostly or fully lexicalzed deverbals  advances the inquiry, for, as you say, some gerunds, NOT deverbal nouns, narrow sense, still can take 'the.'


----------



## lucas-sp

bennymix said:


> Exactly, Lucas.  You favor a more narrow def'n of 'deverbal noun';   exclusion of the mostly or fully lexicalzed deverbals  advances the inquiry, for, as you say, some gerunds, NOT deverbal nouns, narrow sense, still can take 'the.'


Makes sense to me! I would almost say that, depending on the circumstance, any gerund _could_ take an article, but it will change the implications of the gerund. For instance, there's the opening of Pynchon's _Gravity's Rainbow:_ "*A screaming* came across the sky." We can use articles with gerunds for all sorts of effects, especially since gerunds have their own noun-like eccentricity to the verb already.


----------



## yakor

bennymix said:


> One major problem is that 'deverbal noun' never got defined


It is because the knowing of term "noun" is enough. Everyone knows that nouns could be countable and uncountable and nouns never take the direct objects. I wonder why to make up new terms like "deverbals" to confuse people? It is clear when the ing verbal noun is countable it some how deviates from the main sense of the non-finite verb.


----------



## yakor

I have just said what is said everywhere in this or other forum, that participle is the same as a gerund.  I always  disagree with it. They have different functions in a sentence. What do you mean by "Both gerunds and participles are part of the verb"? They are partly (not fully) verb.


----------



## yakor

lucas-sp said:


> Some people would say that "improvising" here is fully deverbal, but my semantic mind thinks that a deverbal only really becomes deverbal when it enters the language as a common noun in its own right.


I would say it is a noun. There are pure nouns, gerunds and finite verbs. Period.
=========
Going aside...It seems that all deverbals (gerunds that become pure nouns) are countable. If the ing noun is uncountable it is the verbal noun, as e2e suggests?  Yes?


----------



## yakor

bennymix,Could you write more clear? I can't get what you wrote in your last post.


----------



## yakor

lucas-sp said:


> "*A screaming* came across the sky." We can use articles with gerunds for all sorts of effects, especially since gerunds have their own noun-like eccentricity to the verb already.


When the articles are used before the gerunds they turn into the pure nouns. It is already not gerunds.
''''''
It would be well if we arranged which words to call gerunds, verbal nouns and deverbal nouns. 
It seems that verbal nouns are nouns that uncountable because they still  mean the action, process, while deverbal nouns mean objects, that could be taken and given.
Also, verbal nouns are not transitive gerunds, because they can't take the object. But intransitive gerunds are the verbal nouns. They mean the action and they don't take the object. Something like that.


----------



## bennymix

Here are simple questions for Lucas and others.  

1. Do you accept this definition.   If not, what's yours?
From M-W unabridged.

* present participle    *
     noun

*:*  a participle that typically expresses present action in relation to the  time expressed by the finite verb in its clause and that *in English is  traditionally one of the principal parts of the verb, is formed with the  suffix -ing*, and is used in the formation of the progressive tenses   [my bold]

---
2.  Do you accept the following:
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/grammar/participles_form.htm

*Use of the present participle*

_[1]Progressive/ Continuous tense  _ 

He is reading a book.
He was reading a book.

_[2] Gerund   _ 
Reading books is fun.
He likes reading books.
_
[3]Participle _ 
[2 odd examples deleted]
He sat reading in the corner.
I saw him reading.


----------



## lucas-sp

yakor said:


> I wonder why to make up new terms like "deverbals" to confuse people?


Look at the difference between the two words spelled "running" in the sentences:

A) He's in the running to be our next mayor.
B) He's planning on running a marathon in September.

We simply cannot explain the difference between the words in A and B by saying that A is a noun and B is a gerund (because a gerund _is_ a noun in sentence B, a verbal noun, one of the noun forms a verb can take on). We can only explain the difference by saying that _A is a deverbal noun, while B is a verbal noun (in particular, B is a gerund)._

And yes, both gerunds and participles _are _part of the verb. They still carry all of the verb-ness of the verb; they are derived from verbs in regular and systematic ways; they are certain non-finite inflections of the verb with certain meanings.

And finally: we really, really have to remember that _the gerund and "the verbal noun" are not the same thing._ There are other verbal nouns that are not gerunds; gerunds are _one kind_ of verbal noun. We could say that the gerund is the particular verbal noun that ends in -ing (or the verbal noun formed from the -ing form of the verb).


----------



## lucas-sp

Benny, you're proposing two different classifications. M-W doesn't at all suggest that the present participle can be (used as) a gerund. It only suggests that the present participle is used in the formation of the continuous aspect (which it calls "progressive"). That's a fairly common statement, and I'm not going to try to take it down here.

The German site suggests that participles "become" gerunds. That seems awkward to me. More awkwardly, it suggests that "participles are sometimes participles," which (to my mind) is clunky logic: "When is a participle not a participle? When it's a gerund. But actually a gerund is a participle. Whoops."

I would prefer to say, _for my own purposes and because it's helpful to me_, that A) the -ing form of the verb (or the gerund-participle) is one of the canonical forms of the verb in English, and that B) the -ing form of the verb is used in the formation of the continuous aspect, as the progressive participle (one kind of _verbal modifier_ used in English), and as the gerund (one kind of _verbal noun_ used in English). 

Finally, and as a coda, there's C): sometimes the gerund gets more or less deverbalized, sometimes simply for the purposes of one particular context (Pynchon's "A screaming...", Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew"), but sometimes becoming lexicalized and entering the language as a word in its own right entirely separate from the verb from which it derives.

For me, it's more helpful to think of one verb form being put to three different specific uses. But that's a personal choice made on both aesthetic, philosophical, and pedagogical grounds; i.e., to me that statement seems more elegant, more logical, and more useful in my quest to understand something about how English works.


----------



## bennymix

OK, perhaps '_ing_-form' is simplest--and I guess it shall remain forever (otherwise) nameless.   But we do agree this 'thing' is a principal part of a verb, I gather.

And you want to say this form is sometimes "used...as a gerund,"  yes?   And your definition of gerund? Are you OK with saying the gerund is nominalized ('nouned') form of this 'ing-form."  That is, it's used as (in the position of) a noun.  From this group we exclude the mostly or fully lexicalized 'ing forms', i.e., those meriting their own dictionary entry.


----------



## e2efour

olympics said:


> When can we use articles before gerunds and when we can't?


My summing up of this thread:

You can use an article before some -ing forms, as in _I was woken up by the singing of the birds and the pattering of the rain._
The answer to your question depends on the definition of _gerund_, about which no two grammar books seem to agree. But if you have a noun (called a verbal noun in my sentence), you can use an article.


----------



## yakor

Hi, lucas,
I agree with you almost in all what concerns the ing form of the verb. (gerund and participle)
The example with "running" is not cleAR enough to me.





lucas-sp said:


> Look at the difference between the two words spelled "running" in the sentences:
> 
> A) He's in the running to be our next mayor.
> B) He's planning on running a marathon in September.


1) I don't understand the phrase "the words spelled "running"
2) Coulde one say A)as "He's in the run to be our next major" 
3) I don't get B). "be planning on" is a phrasal verb? What does it mean? Why "on" is necessary?




lucas-sp said:


> We simply cannot explain the difference between the words in A and B by saying that A is a noun and B is a gerund (because a gerund _is_ a noun in sentence B, a verbal noun, one of the noun forms a verb can take on).


But you could if you don't concider the gerund as the noun. It is only a non-finite form of the verb, not a noun. A noun doesn't take the direct objects. The complements of nouns has other functions. (see the definitions of "of-preposition) Gerunds look like nouns because they are a subject or object in the sentense.. and because there are a lot nouns that were formed from intransitive gerunds.


lucas-sp said:


> And yes, both gerunds and participles _are _part of the verb.


I can't get what you mean by "part of the verb". I understand "part of something" as "some particle (OR quality) of something"
Do you use term "part" when you say  about  quality or feature of something?


----------



## yakor

lucas-sp said:


> And finally: we really, really have to remember that _the gerund and "the verbal noun" are not the same thing._ There are other verbal nouns that are not gerunds; gerunds are _one kind_ of verbal noun. We could say that the gerund is the particular verbal noun that ends in -ing (or the verbal noun formed from the -ing form of the verb).


What do you mean by "verbal nouns" at all? Could you say  what is the difference between gerunds and the other verbal nouns, except for their end  "ing"?


----------



## yakor

lucas-sp said:


> but sometimes becoming lexicalized and entering the language as a word in its own right entirely separate from the verb from which it derives.


I noticed you use the transitive  participle "enterering" after the linking verb "become". Is it really OK? I got that only adjective (deverbals) could be used.


----------



## lucas-sp

You need to abandon this transitive/intransitive thing. It quite simply isn't true.





> Gerunds look like nouns because they are a subject or object in the sentense.. and because *there are a lot nouns that were formed from intransitive gerunds*.


Deverbal (lexicalized) nouns have been formed from both transitive and intransitive verbs.





> 1) I don't understand the phrase "the words spelled "running"
> 2) Coulde one say A)as "He's in the run to be our next major"
> 3) I don't get B). "be planning on" is a phrasal verb? What does it mean? Why "on" is necessary?


1. Look at the two sentences:





> A) He's in the running to be our next mayor.
> B) He's planning on running a marathon in September.


In each sentence, there is a word spelled r-u-n-n-i-n-g. One of the words spelled "running" is highlighted in red; the other is highlighted in blue. Although the two words are spelled the same, _they are not the same; they are two different words_. They are not even "two different meanings/uses of the same word" - the words belong to entirely different worlds.

2. No. 
3. "To plan on doing something" is a fixed construction in English.





> And yes, both gerunds and participles _are _part of the verb.


I mean by this that a native speaker understands gerunds and participles as being _verbal_. Gerunds are *grammatically nouns but semantically verbs*. Once an -ing word gets fully deverbalized, it is *both grammatically and semantically a noun*. The meaning of the gerund is part of the meaning of the verb (i.e. it belongs to the semantic field of the verb); the meaning of the deverbal noun is not.

When you get better at English, you'll start to develop the same intuition for this that native speakers have. Some words just "feel" like verbs to us, and other ones do not. I think it's very hard for you to understand the difference between these usages _right now_ because you don't yet have that intuitive sense of what is an appropriate construction or meaning for a particular situation.

I'd say that you should practice reading and writing English for a while, to get the intuitive feel for the difference between these words, and then come back and try to ask this question later. The definitions "gerund," "verbal noun," and "deverbal noun" aren't rules for you to follow, but descriptions of what native speakers actually _do_​ when they speak a language.


----------



## lucas-sp

yakor said:


> What do you mean by "verbal nouns" at all? Could you say  what is the difference between gerunds and the other verbal nouns, except for their end  "ing"?


This is a very good, but entirely off-topic question. I would suggest that you ask it in another thread.

(The other kind of verbal noun we use in English is the _infinitive_​.)


----------



## lucas-sp

yakor said:


> I noticed you use the transitive  participle "enterering" after the linking verb "become". Is it really OK? I got that only adjective (deverbals) could be used.


No, both "becoming..." and "entering..." are participial phrases (used in parallel) modifying the same noun ("the gerund").


----------



## yakor

lucas-sp said:


> (The other kind of verbal noun we use in English is the _infinitive_​.)


And you use the articles before some infinitives, yes?


----------



## yakor

lucas-sp said:


> No, both "becoming..." and "entering..." are participial phrases (used in parallel) modifying the same noun ("the gerund").



...sometimes the gerund gets more or less deverbalized, sometimes simply  for the purposes of one particular context ..., but sometimes (gets) becoming  lexicalized and entering the language as a word in its own right  entirely separate from the verb from which it derives.
 "entering the language" is a gerund phrase, or participle? To which verb it refferes?


----------



## yakor

lucas-sp said:


> Some words just "feel" like verbs to us, and other ones do not. I think it's very hard for you to understand the difference between these usages _right now_ because you don't yet have that intuitive sense of what is an appropriate construction or meaning for a particular situation.


But I feel the difference between words that feel like verbs and like nouns. Someone said here that deverbals are not countable. Maybe they are right?
The verbal nouns are the nouns that mean the action and not countable? (The singing of the birds). There is the doer of action, that is put after the preposition"of". "Deverbal nouns" doesn't need "doer" and "object of action". The nouns before the prepositions doesn't mean the object of the action or the "doer". If it were the "object" than it were necessary to have or to know something about "a doer", but he(a doer) is absent in all cases of deverbal nouns in a sentence. The noun after "of" with deverbals is neither the doer, nor the object, because the ing noun came from the intransitive gerund, that is also "lost" the subject. Really, when the verb loses subject and object it stops being the verb.
I don't think that the deverbal nouns lost the subject and objects in one the same time, at once. 
First, the transitive verb becomes intransitive (it is used without the object), and then it loses the subject. So, the deverbal noun are born.  
"The taming" is not still born. The verb "tame" is still transitive only.
If the verb is only intransitive then it is easy for it "to turn" into the deverbal noun.


----------



## lucas-sp

Too many questions, yakor.





yakor said:


> And you use the articles before some infinitives, yes?


This is a question for a different thread, but the short answer is "no."


----------



## lucas-sp

yakor said:


> Someone said here that deverbals are not countable. Maybe they are right?


No, they aren't. Deverbals can be countable or uncountable or both, just like all nouns.





> If the verb is only intransitive then it is easy for it "to turn" into the deverbal noun.


Transitivity/intransitivity has no effect on deverbalization. Transitive verbs can be deverbalized just as easily as intransitive verbs:

_deer hunting
his love of the arts
his devotion to the arts
the pursuit of knowledge
her performance of the étude
_
Deverbal nouns do not take _direct objects_ in the same way that verbs (and verbals, which are parts of/forms of verbs) take direct objects. But deverbal nouns _still take objects_. "Deer," "the arts," "knowledge," and "the étude" are all objects.

Abandon this question of transitivity/intransitivity; it won't get you anywhere. What the deverbal "loses" is the notion of verb-ness - the notion of _expressing an action, event, or state of being_. Deverbals express some _thing_ - the end result of an action, the agent or patient of an action, the ability to perform an action, the historical occurrence of an action, etc.


----------



## bennymix

I thought I might share some material that tries to sort out the mess about gerunds, here are four articles.

If there are any problems with links, try pasting, or take the title and put quotation marks{"xxx"} around it and Google search.   Sorry for any probs.

http://bulba.sdsu.edu/~malouf/papers/bls96.pdf

A constructional approach to English verbal gerunds

  Robert Malouf, Stanford University

An informative and clear paper which looks at several aspects of the issue.
===================================




http://www.scribd.com/doc/141608801/Velecka-GerundTranslation-Thesis

OR
http://is.muni.cz/th/145171/ff_m/Velecka_GerundTranslation_Thesis.doc%E2%80%8E?furl=%2Fth%2F145171%2Fff_m%2F;so=nx;lang=en
select 'full text of thesis'  (free download)


Andrea Velecká

*Gerund in Translation: A Corpus-Based Study
*

While her core material concerns translation, she has a nice survey of what the best current grammar books say.


================
 
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~lsiegel/escolrev.pdf

*Gerundive Nominals and The Role of Aspect*

*Laura Siegel*
*University of Pennsylvania*

Useful dissection;  focussed on certain specific issues.

===


----------



## yakor

I never met the deverbals from "taking" ang "giving" "The taking/giving of something", because these gerunds are used only transitively.
What is the difference between "The painting of the house" and "Painting the house" when "the painting of the house" is the process of painting, not the picter that you can hang on the wall?


----------



## yakor

lucas-sp said:


> Transitive verbs can be deverbalized just as easily as intransitive verbs:
> 
> _deer hunting
> his love of the arts
> his devotion to the arts
> the pursuit of knowledge
> her performance of the étude
> _


The deverbals doesn't take the object. This object is only the object of the preposition, and the prepositoion phrase is the complement to the "subject" or "object".
"his love of the arts" doesn't come from "to love the arts". It came from the noun "love" + noun "arts". "of the arts" is a preposition phrase, the adjectival modifier of "love". 
"devotion to the arts"= "the noun + the preoposition" +"the noun" (no transitive sense)
deer hunting= the deverbal noun "hunting" + "of deer", "of deer" is an adjectival preposition phrase, has nothing to do with the direct object of "hunting".


----------



## yakor

lucas-sp said:


> Too many questions, yakor.
> This is a question for a different thread, but the short answer is "no."


And what? The infinitive is a verbal noun as you claim as well as the gerund. So why you tell that it is OK to use the article  before the gerund because it is the verbal noun and not OK to use the article before the other verbal NOUN? Gerunds and infinitives are both so called nouns.
I think it has no sense to call the infinitive and gerunds the nouns. In order that gerunds became the noun it is necessary at least the  gerund was intransitive. Using  the article is necessary not always.


----------



## bennymix

Note to yakor.







 Originally Posted by *lucas-sp* 

 
                  /Transitive verbs can be deverbalized just as easily as intransitive verbs:

_deer hunting
his love of the arts
his devotion to the arts
the pursuit of knowledge
her performance of the étude/

_
                            Yakor:  //The deverbals doesn't take the object. This object is only the  object of the preposition, and the preposition phrase is the complement  to the "subject" or "object".
"his love of the arts" doesn't come from "to love the arts". It came  from the noun "love" + noun "arts". "of the arts" is a preposition  phrase, the adjectival modifier of "love". //

This is correct, yakor, the fully nominalized 'ing-form' introduces what would normally be the 'object' (accusative case) through the preposition 'of.'    However, some ing-forms which serve as part of noun phrases [one type of gerund, in some sources] do take direct objects in the normal way;  "Swimming the channel brings great fame." Regarding today's paper:  Shooting a girl friend often leads to charges of murder. [So Oscar Pistorius has found out.]" Within the phrase, some verb-like characteristics are retained.

Lucas's basic point is correct, that the transitivity issue is not central;  he simply omitted to consider one of several possibilities.  In the most common one (full nominalization), which he was thinking of [as shown in the examples], in order to introduce what would normally be the verb's object, 'of' and a prepostional phrase [attached to the ing-form] are required.

If you look at the Siegel paper, she gives "Destroying the memo took an hour." as an example, and shows what some variants do not work.

Let's try to limit discussion to 'ing forms' serving as nouns or within noun phrases.


----------



## yakor

bennymix said:


> "Swimming the channel brings great fame." Regarding today's paper:  Shooting a girl friend often leads to charges of murder. [So Oscar Pistorius has found out.]" Within the phrase, some verb-like characteristics are retained.


You would never say,"The swimming of the channel.." or "The shooting of a girl friend..." OR "The giving of the advice", "The taking in of the help", so why to state that Transitive verbs can be deverbalized just as easily as intransitive verbs and transitivity of the verbs has nothing to do with the using of the deverbals from them?
==========
Could some one tell me what the sentence of Lucas mean? I don't understand the second part of it.
...sometimes the gerund gets more or less deverbalized, sometimes simply for the purposes of one particular context ..., but sometimes becoming lexicalized and entering the language as a word in its own right entirely separate from the verb from which it derives.
======
Could someone tell me the difference between
"The painting of the house" and "Painting the house", (painting is action in both phrases)


----------



## bennymix

Yakor, I'm not sure what your point is.  Declarative sentences would help, not peppering your posts with questions.

Y//why to state that Transitive verbs can  be deverbalized just as easily as intransitive verbs and transitivity of  the verbs has nothing to do with the using of the deverbals from them//

I was talking about ing-forms with particular roles in sentences.    I simply stated that some of these are transitive and take objects as usual, and gave two examples.   They are not hard to find (or make), though less common than fully nominalized cases that Lucas gave.   As to "just as easily,"  I found no particular difficulty making them.   The point to remember is that 'deverbalization' or, here, nominalization, is a process and continuum.   The end point involves 'lexicalization,' the form's obtaining its own entry in a dictionary and fully behaving like a noun, e.g. "painting," as in "We love the paintings of Leonardo."
Perhap midway on the continuum are the examples I gave.


----------



## lucas-sp

yakor said:


> *You would never say*,"The swimming of the channel.." or "The shooting of a girl friend..." OR "The giving of the advice", "The taking in of the help", so why to state that Transitive verbs can be deverbalized just as easily as intransitive verbs and transitivity of the verbs has nothing to do with the using of the deverbals from them?


That's a wrong assumption. You _can_ say "the swimming of the channel," or even "her swimming of the channel." It sounds slightly awkward, but it is not at all incorrect or ungrammatical; it sounds awkward to say "the giving of the advice" because there are other, less complicated ways to express the same idea.

But in a certain _situation_, "the airing of the grievances" is _preferable_ to "airing the grievances." It sounds more formal and more ceremonial. So some speakers would certainly _choose_ to nominalize/slightly-deverbalize the gerund that way.

I want to return to this list for a second. I chose to use only deverbals not ending in -ing to make the list, but we can add some deverbals ending in -ing to the list as well:





> _deer hunting
> his love of the arts
> his devotion to the arts
> the pursuit of knowledge
> her performance of the étude
> __the airing of the grievances
> __the taming of the shrew_


I said that, grammatically speaking, none of these words (duck, the arts, knowledge, the étude, the grievances, the shrew) are _direct objects_. Verbal gerunds can take _direct objects_. But semantically _all of these words are objects_, objects of the verbs contained in the deverbal words "hunting," "love," "devotion," "pursuit," etc. A native speaker immediately understands that they are semantic objects, and would be able to rewrite the phrases to show this: "they went duck hunting" = "they hunted ducks," "the airing of the grievances" = "the process in which the grievances are aired/people air their grievances," "his love of the arts" = "he loves the arts," etc.

The phrases with _of_ are called "objective genitives" for this reason; they express the patient of the verb contained within the deverbal.


----------



## bennymix

Yes, I want to amend what I said, with apologies to Lucas.   The question was the transitivity of the VERB.
In my examples, swim and shoot.  In two of Lucas cases, clearly "Love of arts" and "Pursuit of knowledge", the VERBS are love and pursue.     I see that Lucas meant this.  The resultant 'deverbal' (not an ing form) did not, itself behave like a verb;  the 'object' was introduced by 'of'.
My own examples, with ing-forms contained an object more or less as with the original form:  swim the channel==>swimming the channel.    This not rare, but less common than, say, "His swimming of the channel."

So the moral is, that, *in respect to the original verb*, transitivity or not, makes little difference in forming a 'deverbal' nominalized form, including an ing-form playing a noun role, as in my examples.   The only difference is that in some cases (I've called 'fully nominalized')   what IS the object with respect to the original verb, has to be introduced in another way, as the object of a prepositional phrase, led by 'of.'


----------



## lucas-sp

Sorry if I confused anyone. I wanted to make a list of deverbals that had been made from transitive verbs, and that still took objects. I only wanted to include one "-ing" form because it's easier to see that "pursuit" is a deverbal than it is to see that "hunting" is a deverbal. But I put "deer hunting" on the list because it shows how some deverbals take objects (patients of their verbs) in surprising ways.

To speak more formulaically: Transitive verbs have _patients_ (nouns that receive the action of the verb). There are many ways to express the _patient of a verb_ in English; the direct object is the most common, but many verbs also take prepositional objects. Gerunds, participles, and infinitives also take direct objects (all verbals do; that's one of their main characteristics). Nouns that express actions can also have patients, although nouns _cannot take direct objects_. Many deverbal nouns take objects that are expressed in an objective genitive ("of X").


----------



## yakor

It is impossible to get what you mean in your posts most part. And why you gave the example only with the countable deverbal. I have no problems with it. Do you understand me?


----------



## yakor

Hi! 
Back to my ignored #74 post.
I can't get the second part of the Lucas's sentence and what is the difference between
"The painting of the house" and "Painting the house".(the painting is not the picture)
Also, I don't understsand the meanings of (The swimming of the channel.." or "The shooting of a girl friend..." OR "The giving/taking of something)
Also, i think that all intransitive  gerunds could be used as the deverbal nouns, while the intransitive not. You disagree?
What is the difference between 
"Taking the time" and "The taking of the time"?


----------



## bennymix

//And why you gave the example only with the countable deverbal.//
Yakor, are you asking for a non countable deverbal?   _Preparation for war will stimulate a country's economy._


----------



## yakor

bennymix, I ask about the nouns ended  by "ing". Why you call "preparation" the deverbal, and "preparing" the verbal?
_The preparing for war will not stimulate a country's economy._ Also see the other my not answered questions.
I don't concider the original question answered. It is the same as to ask "can we use articles before the infinitives?"


----------



## lucas-sp

yakor said:


> Also, i think that all *intransitive*  gerunds could be used as the deverbal nouns, while the *intransitive* not.


 You're going to have to re-write that question, yakor.

This is a good question, however:





> What is the difference between
> "Taking the time" and "The taking of the time"?


I would prefer to work with examples of phrases actually used by native speakers, because then we can make much better characterizations. So...

On the television show _Seinfeld_, the characters celebrate a made-up parody version of Christmas called "Festivus." One famous quote runs:





> A1) _Festivus begins with* the airing of the grievances*!_


In "the airing of the grievances," I would tell everyone else how they've disappointed me in the past year. I *air my grievances* against them. Clearly this is a transitive verb. The question is: Why do the writers of the show use this slightly deverbalized (but not necessarily lexicalized) structure, when they could've said:





> A2) _Festivus begins with *airing grievances*!_


In A2, we have a clear gerund (a verbal noun). And this sentence is just as grammatically correct as A1. What makes using this pure gerund undesirable?

Well, A1 is more formal, more ceremonial, and more pompous than A2. It thus sounds like a better title for a ritual event than A2. It's not entirely natural, which makes it more funny. Also, A2 is a verbal, so the listener understands that "airing grievances" is an action performed by people, and will think of them _doing that action_. But A1 is slightly deverbalized, so it acts more like a noun. As such, the listener will think not of the _process of airing grievances_, but the _event or point in time at which grievances are aired_.

By looking at an *actual example of this usage in context, drawn from actual English use by English speakers*, we can see that there are solid _rhetorical_​ (if not necessarily grammatical) reasons to prefer A1 to A2.


----------



## yakor

_*the airing of the grievances*!_
Is "airing" a verbal noun(gerund) too?
What is wrong with "Taking the time" and "The taking of the time"?
"take the time" is Ok.


----------



## lucas-sp

yakor said:


> _*the airing of the grievances*!_
> Is "airing" a verbal noun(gerund) too?


"Airing" in "the airing of the grievances" certainly comes from the verbal noun/gerund "airing." But it takes an article, and instead of taking a direct object it takes an objective genitive. In that way, it has become a deverbal noun, at least slightly. In fact, "airing" has become deverbalized so strongly that it has become its own word with its own entry in the dictionary. That means that "airing" has not only become deverbalized, but it has become _lexicalized_.

Benny and I considered whether it was useful to distinguish between lexicalized and un-lexicalized deverbals back in posts #45-47. A fully-lexicalized word like "a painting" or "an airing" has become _more strongly deverbalized_ on the level of semantics (its meaning and use are completely independent from the "original" verb). But a word like "screaming" in Pynchon's "A screaming came across the sky" is also deverbalized, since it takes an article; however, it isn't as strongly deverbalized as a word like "a painting" because, semantically speaking, its meaning is still more dependent on the verb "to scream."


----------



## JustKate

yakor said:


> _*the airing of the grievances*!_
> Is "airing" a verbal noun(gerund) too?
> What is wrong with "Taking the time" and "The taking of the time"?
> "take the time" is Ok.



The problem with "the taking of the time" is that a native speaker would never, ever say it this way. That's why Lucas used an actual example from _Seinfeld_ instead of this example that you provided.

Now you're going to want to know why, and I'm betting I won't be able to come up with an explanation that satisfies you, because the main reason is that we just don't say that thought that way. But aside from that, the best reason I can come up with is that the inverted "airing of the grievances" structure is used to talk about the process - of _airing_, in this case - or ritual. The idea of _taking time_ being a process or ritual just doesn't make much sense to me, and I suspect not to other native speakers as well.


----------



## lucas-sp

JustKate said:


> The idea of _taking time_ being a process or ritual just doesn't make much sense to me, and I suspect not to other native speakers as well.


At least, the idea of "the taking of the time" as a process or ritual doesn't make sense to me _outside of a valid context_. We could imagine an author or philosopher _choosing to frame_ "taking time" in that way, for a specific purpose or goal, maybe to emphasize a certain philosophical argument about the nature of time or about the way humans relate to time.

So, again, it's pointless to ask about the differences between:

verb-ing object _(example: hunting bears)_
the/a verb-ing of the/a object _(example: the hunting of bears)_
object verb-ing _(example: bear hunting)_

_​without a sense of the context in which a native speaker would choose between these three grammatically correct forms._


----------



## JustKate

lucas-sp said:


> At least, the idea of "the taking of the time" as a process or ritual doesn't make sense to me _outside of a valid context_. We could imagine an author or philosopher _choosing to frame_ "taking time" in that way, for a specific purpose or goal, maybe to emphasize a certain philosophical argument about the nature of time or about the way humans relate to time.
> 
> So, again, it's pointless to ask about the differences between:
> 
> verb-ing object _(example: hunting bears)_
> the/a verb-ing of the/a object _(example: the hunting of bears)_
> object verb-ing _(example: bear hunting)_
> 
> _​without a sense of the context in which a native speaker would choose between these three grammatically correct forms._



Very good point. I can't imagine a context in which "taking time" would be a process or ritual, but maybe I just am not exercising my imagination enough. It's an odd structure, but there are times when an odd structure is exactly what's needed. Only context will determine whether an odd structure works or not.


----------



## yakor

It seems that I was right in my multiple previous posts in the other thread where I stated that if the article is used before the ing form it becomes the deverbal, no matter if it means the countable noun or the process of doing something.


----------



## yakor

In this and the other posts I don't tell about ing nouns that mean the countable nouns. 
You mean that the structure "The ing noun of something" works if it implies the whole process, not result?
I meant "the taking of the time" as the result.(your 25 minutes taking the time for it")
Some people tell that this structure works for a result too. Why not?


----------



## lucas-sp

JustKate said:


> Very good point. I can't imagine a context in which "taking time" would be a process or ritual, but maybe I just am not exercising my imagination enough. It's an odd structure, but there are times when an odd structure is exactly what's needed. Only context will determine whether an odd structure works or not.


That's actually a great point that I wanted to demonstrate with the Festivus example. "The airing of the grievances" doesn't _by itself _sound natural in English, either; "Festivus begins with everyone airing their grievances" would probably be more "natural." But given the correct _context_, it sounds perfect, perfect enough to become something of a famous, quotable line. The choice to deverbalize "to air" in that way was very successful.


yakor said:


> It seems that I was right in my multiple previous posts in the other thread where I stated that if the article is used before the ing form it becomes the deverbal, no matter if it means the countable noun or the process of doing something.


You can certainly look at it that way. I agree that once a gerund takes an article and an objective genitive it becomes _more deverbalized_. I personally think it's more helpful to think of deverbal words as those words that have fully entered the English lexicon, because I prefer the _semantic_​ definition of "deverbalization." Grammatically, though, -ing words that have articles before them have definitely begun to stray away from the verbs from which they are derived.


----------



## bennymix

You should start a thread on this, my friend,
_//Some people tell [sic] that this structure works for a result too. Why not?_//

You said,
//bennymix, I ask about the nouns ended  by "ing".//  You want 'ing' and noncountable, yes?    Speaking of sexual harassment on a campus, the Dean of Students said,
"The harassing of any co-ed will get the offender suspended; and any further harassing, once there's a complaint, will get the offender permanently expelled."


----------



## yakor

bennymix said:


> You should start a thread on this, my friend,
> _//Some people tell [sic] that this structure works for a result too. Why not?_//


About what? How to use "tell" and "say"? I should use "say", not "tell",yes? What do you mean, the new thread about the applying of the structure "the ing form of something"?



bennymix said:


> You said,
> //bennymix, I ask about the nouns ended  by "ing".//  You want 'ing' and noncountable, yes?    Speaking of sexual harassment on a campus, the Dean of Students said,
> "The harassing of any co-ed will get the offender suspended; and any further harassing, once there's a complaint, will get the offender permanently expelled."


Sorry, I can't get what he said. :-(


----------



## yakor

lucas-sp said:


> That's actually a great point that I wanted to demonstrate with the Festivus example. "The airing of the grievances" doesn't _by itself _sound natural in English, either; "Festivus begins with everyone airing their grievances" would probably be more "natural." But given the correct _context_, it sounds perfect, perfect enough to become something of a famous, quotable line. The choice to deverbalize "to air" in that way was very successful.


I'm not sure that I see how the context made the using of this structure correct. Could you say, what is the difference between the usual and unusual using this phrase, why the choice to deverbalize "to air" in that way is very successful?


lucas-sp said:


> You can certainly look at it that way. I agree that once a gerund takes an article and an objective genitive it becomes _more deverbalized_. I personally think it's more helpful to think of deverbal words as those words that have fully entered the English lexicon, because I prefer the _semantic_​ definition of "deverbalization." Grammatically, though, -ing words that have articles before them have definitely begun to stray away from the verbs from which they are derived.


Could you give me the example when the ing form means the process, action and is deverbal, that is, put in the dictionary? I saw only deverbals from the infinitive, that mean the process.


----------



## bennymix

bennymix: "You should start a thread on this, my friend,"

yakor,//_About what? How to use "tell" and "say"? I should use "say", not "tell",yes?_//

Yep.  That's what I meant.   Just a friendly suggestion, though.


----------



## lucas-sp

yakor said:


> Could you give me *the example when the ing form means the process*, action and *is deverbal, that is, put in the dictionary*? I saw only *deverbals from the infinitive*, that mean the process.


*1.* A word that is put in the dictionary is *lexicalized*. But a word can be more or less deverbalized without being lexicalized, or without being lexicalized _yet_ at this point in the development of our language. An example is Pynchon's "A _screaming_ came across the sky." Let's be careful to keep those meanings separate (perhaps _semantic_​ deverbalization is lexicalization, but we shouldn't confuse all the terms).

*2. *I'm not sure if it matters what ending a deverbal has, except that certain endings are more likely to have certain meanings than other endings. For instance, the _-er/-or_ ending means "someone who does..." (director, actor, producer). There are similar patterns for -tion, -trix, -ability, etc. (domination, redemptrix, permeability, etc.) I don't know if there's a similar pattern for -ing deverbals. I'd be curious to see _what examples_ you've found, however.
*
3. *"Training" comes to mind (for instance, "basic training" in the military, or "The astronauts have begun their traning for the space mission"), as does "editing" ("After work is done on set, the film enters editing, where it will be cut into the final form shown in theaters"). "Hunting" also names an activity. Why is this important?


----------



## lucas-sp

yakor said:


> I'm not sure that I see how the context made the using of this structure correct. Could you say, what is the difference between the usual and unusual using this phrase, why the choice to deverbalize "to air" in that way is very successful?


See post #83.


----------



## TommyGun

lucas-sp said:


> A1) Festivus begins with the airing of the grievances!
> 
> A2) Festivus begins with airing grievances!
> 
> Well, A1 is more formal, more ceremonial, and more pompous than A2. It thus sounds like a better title for a ritual event than A2. It's not entirely natural, which makes it more funny. Also, A2 is a verbal, so the listener understands that "airing grievances" is an action performed by people, and will think of them _doing that action_. But A1 is slightly deverbalized, so it acts more like a noun. As such, the listener will think not of the _process of airing grievances_, but the _event or point in time at which grievances are aired_.



These sentences are different not only in the noun / gerund aspect, but also you compare definite "the grievances" with indefinite "grievances".
Why do you so?

How would the sense, or the pompousness or etc change if you omitted the article in A1)
_A1') Festivus begins with the airing of grievances_

or add an article in A2)
_A2') Festivus begins with airing the grievances!_

and we compared A1') with A2) or A1) with A2')?

That is, the question is, does the article really matter; is there a tendency to use "the" after an "..-ing of" verbal noun and omit it after "..-ing" gerund?


----------



## lucas-sp

A1' is still more formal and ritualistic, so it's like A1.

A2' implies that there is a specific set of grievances in informal speech. I took out the "the" just because it doesn't have quite the same meaning in a formal and in an informal turn of phrase like the ones here.

I don't think there's any link between verbal/deverbal nouns and the articles that follow them. Article use for the object of the action will follow normal rules for article use.


----------



## Elwintee

I know this is a grammar question, but I suggest it is a very artificial one.  Surely most native speakers of English would not say "At (the) coming on of night" or "At the coming of night".  In the 21st century we usually say "When night falls/fell" and, similiarly "At the break of day" or "When day breaks/broke".  In order to discuss the grammatical point (and not a quote from an actual text which uses the phrase) could we suggest an example from real, everyday speech?  Please forgive me if I am too far off topic, but this is an English only forum, not a grammar only one.


----------



## TommyGun

lucas-sp, thank you!


----------

