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6. FINDINGS<br />

(151) And that is a way of making small Globules or Balls of Lead, or<br />

Tin, as small almost as these of Iron or Steel, and that exceeding<br />

easily and quickly, by turning the filings or chips of those Metals<br />

also into perfectly round Globules. (E3 1665 Hooke The life and<br />

work of Robert Hooke)<br />

(152) for if the fire be too hot, many of these filings will joyn and run<br />

together; whereas if the heat be proportioned, upon washing the<br />

lime-dust in fair Water, […] (E3 1665 Hooke The life and work<br />

of Robert Hooke)<br />

This pattern greatly resembles that of a VP followed by an object. This is not at all<br />

surprising because, as pointed out in Section 2.1, one of the verbal features the gerund has<br />

acquired over time is its capacity to govern an object. As is clear from the data in Table 11,<br />

the increase in the amount of verbal –ing forms runs parallel to the decrease of nominal<br />

–ing formations. This fact points to the possible specialization undergone by the suffix<br />

–ing to be used only in verbal formations.<br />

As Table 12 reflects, Romance nominalizations behave quite differently to those<br />

formed by the native suffix –ing. Their frequency increases in every type of phrase, their<br />

increase being sharper when showing only pre-head dependents, having a normalized<br />

frequency of 30.5 in E3, in contrast to 7.9 in E1. However, the kind of construction<br />

preferred by Romance nominalizations is that having both pre- and post-head dependents,<br />

with a normalized frequency of 36.5 in E3.<br />

173

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