0 INTRODUCTION

5. CORPORA AND METHODOLOGY
able to burn one fingers. (E3 1665 Hooke The life and work of
Robert Hooke)
(127) (...) I will heere presently set downe as it were a Store-house of
diuers and sundry approoued Chirurgical remedyes, necessary for
the curing and safe healing of the forenamed Strumaeic and
Phlegmaticall sicknesse: (E2 1602 Clowes Treatise for the
artificiall cure of struma)
(126) and (127) starkly contrast with (124) and (125) above in that not all the dependents
are shared by all the heads. Although the PPs of Steel and of the forenamed (...) sicknesse
can be considered as dependents of each of the nominalizations involved, the adverb
violently in (126) and the adjective safe in (127) can only be regarded as modifiers of the
gerund they precede. Note the difference in meaning between the original constructions in
these two examples and the following rewordings, where the pre-head dependents violently
and safe have been placed before the first nominalization and, thus, refer to all the nominal
heads of the coordinated construction: that either violently hammering, or filing, or
otherwise rubbing of Steel; for the safe curing and healing of the forenamed Strumaeic and
Phlegmaticall sicknesse. Examples (126) and (127) are grouped together with (128) and
(129) as cases in which their head nominalizations do not share all the dependents:
(128) (...) Al thinges that man would knowe, may be knowen by one of
these three thingses: That is to say, by his name, or by his
working, or els by his very being and shewing of his owne
properties (E1 1548 Vicary The anatomie of the bodie of man)
(129) (...) and could not be made more commodiously and
compendiously, for performing both these requisite motions, of
walking and climbing up the hair of a mans head, (E3 1665
Hooke The life and work of Robert Hooke)
However, in the latter examples, this is not due to the position occupied by the modifier in
the NP, as in (126) and (127) above, but rather to the nature of the verbs involved in the
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