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6. FINDINGS<br />

increase in number, although their frequency remains more constant in the data analyzed in<br />

this study (53.9 in E1 to 71.6 in E3). These results are in line with those obtained by<br />

Donner (1986), who, in his analysis of the –ing nominalizations in the Middle English<br />

Dictionary (volumes A to O), showed that the number of gerunds in the fifteenth century<br />

doubled that of the fourteenth century. Donner attributes this rise in the use of gerunds to<br />

“their utility as a ready means of deriving a noun from any verb” (Donner 1986: 398). This<br />

trend is also confirmed by Fanego (1996), who studies the gerund in EModE scientific<br />

texts from the Helsinki Corpus. Her data show an even sharper increase in the frequency of<br />

gerunds (34.9 in E1, 67.5 in E2 and 72.7 in E3).<br />

6.1.2. Distribution of nominalizations according to the type of phrase<br />

It must be noted, however, that the increase in the number of nominalizations does not<br />

apply to all kinds of nominalizations in the same manner. Tables 11 (for –ing<br />

nominalizations) and 12 (for Romance nominalizations) show the frequency of both –ing<br />

and Romance formations, taking into account the structure of the phrases in question.<br />

170

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