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

Thus, as Huddleston (2002b: 1188) indicates, “the syntactic use of this form [i.e. the<br />

gerund] was greatly extended, so that it came to combine not just with dependents of the<br />

kind associated with nouns (…), but also with those associated with verbs.” At this point,<br />

it seems that the idea of taking the gerund just as a verbal noun is in need of revision.<br />

Take, for instance, the following examples from Huddleston (2002a: 81):<br />

(30) a. He was expelled for killing the birds [form of verb]<br />

b. She had witnessed the killing of the birds [gerundial noun]<br />

c. He was expelled from wantonly killing the birds<br />

d. She had witnessed the wanton killing of the birds<br />

e. *The killing the birds<br />

Although the –ing forms in (30a) and (30b) may seem identical at first sight, on closer<br />

inspection one realizes that their nature is clearly different. By applying the grammatical<br />

tests (Huddleston 2002a: 82) related to the formal properties of nouns and verbs discussed<br />

above, the intrinsic differences between killing in (30a) and (30b) become evident. In<br />

(30a), it is modified by an NP, exactly as verbs are, whereas in (30b), killing is modified<br />

by a prepositional phrase (henceforth PP), in the same manner as nouns. Furthermore, in<br />

(30a) an adverb is required for the modification of the –ing form, giving (30c) as a result,<br />

while the counterpart for (30b) contains an adjective modifier, as shown in (30d). This<br />

points to the verbal nature of killing in (30a) and to its nominal nature in (30b).<br />

Furthermore, if attention is paid to determiners, killing in (30a) does not allow the use<br />

of an article, as shown in (30e), while in (30b) the killing of the birds is perfectly<br />

grammatical. This piece of evidence points in the same direction as the previous tests. As<br />

a final test for the distinction between instances (30a) and (30b), Huddleston (2002a: 82)<br />

uses the inflection for the plural. In the case of (30a) the plural inflection is not allowed,<br />

while in (30b) it would be perfectly grammatical (e.g. The killings of the birds). In<br />

addition, the gerund can behave as a verb and as a nominal at the same time (cf. [31]<br />

48

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