- •2. The parts of speech.
- •§ 11. As a result of the undertaken analysis we have obtained a foundation for dividing the whole of the lexicon on the upper level of classification into three unequal parts.
- •4. The Noun, its categories
- •6. The Adjectiv, degrees of comparsion
- •§ 7. Let us examine now the combinations of less/least with the basic form of the adjective.
- •§ 8. Having considered the characteristics of the category of comparison, we can see more clearly the relation to this category of some usually non-comparable evaluative adjectives.
- •9. The Verb, its categories
- •1. Categories of Person and Number
- •2. Category of Tense
- •3. Category of Aspect
- •4. Category of Voice
- •5. Category of Mood
- •11.The Infinitive
- •14. The Gerund
- •17. The Participle
- •19.The Modal Verbs
- •22.The Subjunctive Mood
- •Summary of forms
- •Table of forms
- •24. The Types of English Sentence
- •27.Types of Clauses
- •28. Complex Sentence
- •§ 10. Complex sentences which have two or more subordinate clauses discriminate two basic types of subordination arrangement: parallel and consecutive.
- •29. Simple Sentence
14. The Gerund
The gerund, like the infinitive, combines the properties of the verb with those of the noun and gives the process the verbal name. In comparison with the infinitive the gerund reveals stronger substantive properties. Namely, as different from the infinitive, and similar to the noun, the gerund can be modified by a noun in the possessive case or its pronominal equivalents (expressing the subject of the verbal process), and it can be used with prepositions.
The combinability of the gerund is dual: it has a mixed, verb-type and noun-type, valency. Like the infinitive, the gerund performs the syntactic functions of the subject, the object, the predicative, the attribute, and the adverbial modifier. The gerund has two grammatical categories: the aspective category of retrospective coordination and the category of voice. Consequently, the categorial paradigm of the gerund of the objective verb includes four forms: the Simple Active, the Perfect Active, the Simple Passive, the Perfect Passive. The gerundial paradigm of the non-objective verb, correspondingly, includes two forms.
17. The Participle
The present participle serves as a qualifying-processual name. It combines the properties of the verb with those of the adjective and adverb.
The present participle has two categories: the category of retrospective coordination and the category of voice. The triple nature of the present participle finds its expression in its mixed (verb-type, adjective-type, adverb-type) valency and its syntactic functions (those of the predicative, the attribute, and the adverbial modifier).
The present participle, similar to the infinitive, can build up semi-predicative complexes of objective and subjective types.
The past participle combines the properties of the verb with those of the adjective. The categorial meaning of the past participle is qualifying: it gives some sort of qualification to the denoted process. The past participle has no paradigmatic forms; by way of paradigmatic correlation with the present participle, it conveys implicitly the categorial meanings of the perfect and the passive. Its valency is not specific; its typical syntactic functions are those of the attribute and the predicative.
Like the present participle, the past participle is capable of making up semi-predicative constructions of complex object, complex subject, as well as absolute complexes.
The consideration of the English verbids in their mutual comparison, supported and supplemented by comparing them with their nonverbal counterparts, reveals a peculiar character of their correlation.
The correlation of the infinitive, the gerund, and the verbal noun, being of an indisputably systemic nature and covering a vast proportion of the lexicon, makes up a special lexico-grammatical category of processual representation. The three stages of this category represent the referential processual entity of the lexemic series, respectively, as dynamic (the infinitive and its phrase), semi-dynamic (the gerund and its phrase), and static (the verbal noun and its phrase). The category of processual representation underlies the predicative differences between various situation-naming constructions in the sphere of syntactic nominalization.
Another category specifically identified within the framework of substantival verbids and relevant for syntactic analysis is the category of modal representation. This category, pointed out by L.S. Barkhudarov, marks the infinitive in contrast to the gerund, and it is revealed in the infinitive having a modal force, in particular, in its attributive uses, but also elsewhere.
In treating the ing-forms as constituting one integral verbid entity, opposed, on the one hand, to the infinitive, on the other hand, to the past participle, appeal is naturally made to the alternating use of the possessive and the common-objective nounal element in the role of the subject of the mg-form, the latter construction is known in linguistics as "half-gerund". The half-gerund is an intermediary form with double features whose linguistic semi-status is reflected in the term itself. In fact, the verbid under examination is rather to be interpreted as a transferred participle, or a gerundial participle, since semantic accent in half-gerundial construction is made on the situational content of the fact or event described, with the processual substance as its core (e.g.: / didn't mind the children playing in the study).