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2. –ING NOMINALS: ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT<br />

its real status as verbal or nominal. Take, for example, this instance from Jespersen (1940<br />

[1909] Vol. V: 110),<br />

(28) 13. Sidney Arc. 1.93 let my not knowing you serve for the excuse<br />

of my boldness.<br />

Although the gerund knowing is used here with a possessive determiner, just like<br />

nouns do, it is negated by the particle not, just as verbs are. In this study, the label gerund<br />

will be used, following Fanego (1996: 97), to denote “any –ing form having, roughly, the<br />

same distribution as nouns or noun phrases, and thus capable of functioning as subject<br />

(…), object (…), predicative (…), appositive (…), or prepositional complement” (see also<br />

Tajima 1985a, Houston 1989, among others). Along the same lines, Huddleston (2002a:<br />

81) points out that “[a] gerund is traditionally understood as a word derived from a verb<br />

base which functions as or like a noun”, as in (29a) and (29b) below:<br />

(29) a. Destroying the files was a serious mistake<br />

b. I regret destroying the files<br />

c. The destruction of the files<br />

The gerundive construction destroying the files in (29a) and (29b) can be easily<br />

replaced by the NP in (29c), where destruction is clearly a noun, and the propositional<br />

meaning of the sentences remains the same. This fact seems to indicate that the gerund<br />

functions as a noun. Likewise, according to Jespersen (1940 [1909] Vol. V: 89), the<br />

gerund shows the same characteristics as any other noun from a syntactic point of view:<br />

1. it can be the subject, predicative, or object of a sentence, also the<br />

regimen (“object”) of a preposition<br />

2. it can form a plural<br />

3. it can form a genitive<br />

4. it can be used with a definite and indefinite article<br />

5. it can take other adjuncts<br />

6. it can have a subject and an object in the same way as other nexussubstantives<br />

7. it can enter into compounds<br />

46

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