0 INTRODUCTION

2. –ING NOMINALS: ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT
acquired verbal features. In this process of verbalization of –ing nominals, the writing
style and their internal syntax played an important role. As for the writing style, Fanego’s
(1998: 104, 116) data indicate that the acquisition of verbal characteristics, such as the
verbalization of the object of the gerund, takes place at an earlier stage in the “more oral
and less formal genres,” which means that this change is a change from below in
Labovian terms (1994: 78). Syntactically speaking, the data provided by Fanego (1996:
132) suggests that verbalization took place earlier in gerunds having only post-head
dependents, as in (33a), which are strongly reminiscent of verbal syntax. Verbal gerunds
of this type are well represented already at the beginning of the EModE period (1500-
1570), and their process of verbalization was almost complete at the end of the period
(1640-1710). Interestingly, the verbalization process was manifested not only in the
realization as NPs of thenotional objects of gerunds, but also in properties such as the
ability to take predicatives, and to allow negative forms, passive forms, and combinations
of perfect and passive, as in (33b) below:
(33) a. E3 1688 Beim Oroonoko 161: she cou'd only sigh and weep
there, and think of Oroonoko; and oftentimes cou’d not forbear
speaking of Him,
b. E3 1688 Beim Oroonoko 161: He was troubled, for having been
forc'd, by an irresistible passion, to rob his son of a treasure, he
knew, cou'd not but be extremely dear to him; (Fanego 1996:
108, 132)
On the contrary, –ing nominals having both pre- and post-head dependents acquire
verbal features considerably later. The diffusion of direct objects from gerunds with only
post-head dependents to gerunds with both pre- and post-head dependents brought about
the emergence of hybrid structures of the kind shown in (34a) to (34f), henceforth
referred to here as POSS-ing and mixed gerunds properly speaking (MIX). In POSS-ing
constructions, the otherwise verbal –ing nominalizations have as their pre-head
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