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Sennrich2019.Pdf This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. The Syntax and Morphology of English -ing Xin Sennrich Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences The University of Edinburgh 2019 I II Abstract This thesis discusses the syntax and morphology of English -ing forms and draws a categorial distinction between gerunds and present participles. In English, the suffix -ing can attach to almost any verb, except modal verbs (*caning, musting, etc.). This thesis attempts to find out whether all the words in the form of V-ing are instances of the same lexical element or whether some or all of them are distinct elements. The form V-ing can be realised as prototypical nouns, which denote entities (e.g. a tall building, a long meeting) and prototypical adjectives, which denote properties (e.g. very boring, more interesting), etc. There are also V-ing nouns that describe events, and they are called associated V-ing nominals in the thesis (e.g. The building of the bridge took three years, The writing of a book is difficult). Among words in the form of V-ing, it is hard to decide the categorial status of gerunds (e.g. Writing a book is difficult, The kids discussed visiting their grandparents) and present participles (e.g. He is writing a book. The kids kept visiting their grandparents), as well as to distinguish them from each other. In traditional grammar, gerunds and participles are both inflected verb forms but distinct from each other. According to The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Huddleston & Pullum 2002), no verb shows any difference between gerunds and present participles. Huddleston & Pullum (2002) have just one inflectional form of the verb marked by the -ing suffix; the form is labelled with the term ‘gerund-participle’. Huddleston & Pullum (2002) also take the view that from the point of syntax (as opposed to inflection) the distinction between gerunds and participles is not viable. Their conclusion is that ‘there is no difference of form, function, or interpretation that correlates systematically with the traditional distinction between “gerund” and “present participle”. The distinction introduces an unmotivated complication into the grammar: it is one of the features of traditional grammar that should be discarded’ (Huddleston, 2002a: 1222). This thesis argues against Huddleston & Pullum’s (2002) claim that a distinction between gerunds and present participles cannot be sustained. This thesis will show that gerunds and present participles are different in distribution and thus belong to I separate categories. I analyse that gerunds belong to the category of nouns, and participles belong to the category of adjectives. The analysis involves the contrast of gerunds with associated V-ing nominals and the comparison of participles and prototypical adjectives. Both gerunds and associated V-ing nominals have the distribution of nouns and thus belong to the category of nouns. However, phrases headed by gerunds, unlike ordinary NPs, have the internal structure of VPs. I will show that gerunds are categorially nouns because they inherit the distribution from nouns, and they inherit theta-marking and adverb modification from relationals, which give rise to the phrase structure of VPs. Participles have the distribution of adjectives, though they are different from prototypical adjectives in certain ways. I will show that the differences are due to the fact that participles and prototypical adjective have different semantics. Thus the differences are not distributional, i.e. they do not distinguish categories. From the perspective of morphology, in traditional grammar and Huddleston & Pullum (2002), both gerunds and present participles are inflected forms of verbs. However, I argue that gerunds are categorially nouns and participles are categorially adjectives. Therefore, they are derived from verbs via -ing suffixation, gerunds being derived nominals whereas participles being derived adjectives. In addition, the analysis of participles being adjectives is also supported by the morphology of prototypical adjectives that are in the form of participles. If participles were inflected verb forms, there would not be a plausible, single morphological explanation for boring, interesting, tired, drunk, hurt to arise in the system. The thesis ends with a discussion of Verb-ing-Noun combination. There are two types of V-ing-N compounds: one type such as drinking water, sleeping pill, the other such as hummingbird, sleeping partner, etc. The two types differ in the categorial status of V-ing and the attribution relation. The combination can also be a noun phrase, e.g. interesting story, sleeping baby, etc. The difference in attribution relation and the compound-phrase distinction are closely related to the categorial status of the V-ing, because of which we need a theory of distinguishing different - ing forms; that is why I start the thesis. The patterns of Verb-ing-Noun combination, in turn, show that present participles and gerunds are distinct in the category. II Lay summary This thesis discusses the syntax and morphology of English -ing forms and shows that gerunds and present participles are distinct from each other. English V-ing has several realisations. V-ing can be a prototypical noun, (e.g. a tall building, a long meeting) or a prototypical adjective (e.g. boring, interesting), etc. Unlike a prototypical V-ing noun that denotes entities, there are also V-ing nouns that describe events (e.g. The building of the bridge took three years, The writing of a book is difficult); they are called associated V-ing nominals in the thesis. Among the words in V-ing form, gerunds (e.g. Writing a book is difficult, The kids discussed visiting their grandparents) and present participles (e.g. He is writing a book. The kids kept visiting their grandparents) are, in traditional grammar, regarded as inflected forms of verbs and are distinct from each other. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002) claims that no verb shows any difference between gerunds and present participles, and there is just one inflectional form of the verb marked by the -ing suffix; the form is labelled with the term ‘gerund-participle’. Huddleston & Pullum (2002) also take the view that from the point of syntax the distinction between gerunds and participles is not viable. This thesis argues against Huddleston & Pullum’s (2002) claim that a distinction between gerunds and present participles cannot be sustained. I will show that gerunds and present participles have different functions and thus are separate categories. I analyse that gerunds belong to the category of nouns, and participles belong to the category of adjectives. For analysing the categorial status of gerunds and participles, I discuss the contrast of gerunds with associated V-ing nominals and the comparison of participles and prototypical adjectives. Phrases headed by both gerunds and associated V-ing nominals have the syntactic functions of NPs, however, phrases headed by gerunds, unlike ordinary NPs, have the internal structure of VPs. I will show that gerunds inherit distribution from nouns, which shows their categorial status, and they inherit some features from relationals. Participles have the distribution of adjectives, though there are certain differences between participles and prototypical adjectives. I will III show that the differences are due to the fact that participles and prototypical adjectives have different semantics. Thus the differences do not distinguish them as separate categories. I will also discuss the morphology of V-ing: is -ing a derivational or inflectional suffix? In traditional grammar and Huddleston & Pullum (2002), both gerunds and present participles are inflected forms of verbs. However, I have analysed gerunds as nouns and participles as adjectives. Therefore, gerunds and present participles are derived from verbs via -ing suffixation, gerunds being derived nominals whereas participles being derived adjectives. In addition, the analysis of participles being adjectives is also supported by the morphology of prototypical adjectives that are in the form of adjectives. If participles were inflected verb forms, there would not be a plausible, single morphological explanation for boring, interesting, tired, drunk, hurt, etc. to arise in the system. The thesis ends with a discussion of Verb-ing-Noun combination. There are V-ing-N compounds, and they can be grouped into two types because of the categorial difference of V-ing: drinking water, washing machine, sleeping pill or hummingbird, mockingbird, sleeping partner. The two types also differ in attribution relation. Besides, the Verb-ing-Noun combination can also be phrases, e.g. interesting story, sleeping boy, etc. The difference in attribution and the compound-phrase distinction are closely related to the categorial status of the V-ing form, for which we need a theory of distinguishing different -ing forms. The discussion of Verb-ing-Noun combination in turn also shows that present participles and gerunds are distinct in the category. IV Acknowledgements In the course of completing this dissertation, I have been fortunate to know a great many people, without whose help this would be a much poor work. Above all, the person whom this dissertation owes the most to is Heinz Giegerich, my first supervisor.
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