Re: Infinitives & gerunds: -- Participles, Verbal Nouns, Nominalized Verbs
| From: | R A Brown <ray@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Sunday, October 8, 2006, 16:37 |
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Eldin Raigmore wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Oct 2006 17:21:54 +0100, R A Brown <ray@...>
> wrote:
[snip]
>>Participle:
>>"Any of various non-finite verb forms which act as the heads of verbs
>>phrases functioning as adjectival or adverbial modifiers..."
>>[Trask]
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participle
> "In linguistics, a participle is a kind of verbal adjective; it indicates
> that the noun it modifies is a participant in the action that the
> participle refers to."
> I take it Trask doesn't either?
I quoted Trask's opening sentence above. No, he does not mention it
either, But consider also his examples (the 'expansions' are mine):
# The woman lighting a cigarette is Lisa.
= The woman, who [subj.] is lighting a cigarette, is Lisa.
# Arriving at work, I found a message waiting for me.
= When I [subj.] arrived at work, I found a message which [subj.] was
waiting for me.
# The child rescued from the well is now in hospital.
= The child, who [subj.] had been rescued from the well, is now in hospital.
# Exhausted by his efforts, he tumbled into bed.
= Because he [subj,] had been exhausted by his efforts, he tumbled into bed.
Trask's second example is interesting. Some people would say "On
arriving at work...". It should also be noted that when this is
'expanded' we use an adverbial clause of time [When I had....]. The
participle is being used adverbially rather than adjectively; IIRC
Esperanto would explicitly have an adverbial form here - alveninte.
*PARTICIPLES IN PERIPHRASTIC VERB FORMS*
After giving the above examples, Trask writes:
"The label 'participle' is also usually extended to non-finite forms
which do not function in this way but which serve to combine with
auxiliaries in the formation of periphrastic verb forms; an example in
English is the English perfect participle, such as _finished_ in _Lisa
has finished her translation_."
Neither in the 'How to kick the infinitive habit' thread, the
'Infinitives & gerunds' thread nor this thread has this use of
non-finite verbs been considered. In fact all forms of non-finite verbs
- whether participles, infinitives, gerundives or gerunds - may be found
used this way with auxiliary verbs in different languages. These uses
are *language specific*.
In English the two uses are:
(a) "to be" + imperfective ('present') participle to form the tenses of
the progressive (or continuous) aspect; e.g. Lisa is/was/will be writing
letters.
In this construction the participle can be considered as a use of the
participle as a predicative adjective, cf.
Lisa is beautiful ~ Lisa is smiling.
But if we 'expand' the participle we do get recursion:
Lisa is beautiful --> Lisa is a beautiful person.
Lisa is smiling _-. Lisa is a person who is smiling --> Lisa is a person
who is a person who is smiling etc. ;)
(b) "to have" + perfect participle to form the tenses of the prefect*
aspect; e.g. Lisa has gone out.
This began life, so to speak, some two & half millennia ago in phrases
with transitive verbs. Thus we find in Plautus:
hasce aedis conductas habet
These-ACC.PL rooms-ACC.Pl hire-PP-ACC.PL has-PRES-3SG
He has these hired [by him] rooms = He has hired these rooms
But now the original construction has been forgotten and "have+perfect
participle" is used in many western European languages with various
meanings.
*these forms are also used for related aspects such as _experiential_,
e.g. Lisa has worked in Paris. Also British & American usage does differ
in some respects :)
Some languages, such as Welsh, show a preference for using verbal nouns
with auxiliaries for periphrastic tense/aspect forms, others prefer
participles.
{\PARTICIPLES IN PERIPHRASTIC VERB FORMS}
>
>>I'm not sure what you mean by "participant in the verb".
>
> The agent or patient (or, I suppose, the instrument or beneficiary or ... )
> of the verb from which the participle is derived.
>
> The passive participle "cut" derived from the verb "cut" indicates that the
> modified noun was the patient of the cutting; "the cut flowers".
>
> The active participle "cutting" derived from the verb "cut" indicates that
> the modified noun was the agent of the cutting; "the cutting insult".
Yes, if those are the semantic roles of the particular verb arguments.
It won't work if the verb's subject and/object have different semantic
roles. For example, in "his dying words", the modified noun is hardly an
agent! I think it is less misleading to think in terms of the
_syntactic_ the role of subject (as shown above).
>
>>They can, of course, as heads of adjectival phrases, modify the subject of
>>the verb or, indeed, any of its other noun arguments.
>
> You seem to be referring to the verb of the clause in which the participle
> is used?
> I was referring, instead, to the verb from which the participle is derived.
Not at all - I am referring to the _NP_ (*not* the verb), in whatever
clause it occurs, that is modified by the participle. If, as I have
shown above, the participle is 'expanded' into a clause, the modified
noun is the subject of the verb from which the participle is derived.
>
>>>There are several verbal nouns (or deverbal nouns or nominalized verbs)
[snip]
>>
>>A deverbal noun is a straight noun formed from a verb; it has no verbal
>>functions, e.g. realization <-- realize; development <-- develop etc.
>
> Yes, I knew that.
Your use of "or" is not clear; it could be read as tho you thought
'verbal noun', 'deverbal noun' and 'nominalized verb' were the same thing.
[snip]
>
> I was wondering whether some people think all verbal adjectives are
> participles,
Aren't they? What else would they be?
The only thing I can think of that might be considered differently are
the Latin 'gerundives'; but even those could IMO be considered as
'gerundial participles'.
> or whether some people think a participle has to indicate that
> its "head noun" was or is or would have been a "participant" in the action
> indicated by the verb.
By "head noun" I assume you mean the noun modified by the participle.
Yes, by the very fact that it is no modified must of necessity mean the
noun 'participates in the verbal function' (_not_ of course necessarily
"action", as not all verbs denote actions - IMO are putting undue
emphasis on a poorly worded part of the Wikipedia definition).
> I was not asking for a term to cover deverbal nouns; I was asking for a
> term to cover verbal nouns which denote participants in the action
> indicated by the verb.
Participle.
> But some nominalizations are deverbal rather than verbal, I think. (Or at
> least some of them could be in some languages.)
Yes, of course, very many are: realization, establishment etc etc.
> In English it is harder to tell the difference if the verb in question is
> intransitive than if it is transitive.
Why?
> For instance, is "evanescent" a participle or a deverbal adjective?
It is *not* a participle. _All_ English imperfective ('present')
participles end in -ing. The present participle of 'evanesce' is
'evanescing.'
> Is "evanescence" a gerund or a deverbal noun?
A deverbal noun. The English gerund is *always* identical in form to the
imperfective participle, hence 'evanescing' (not likely to occur
over-much, methinks).
OK
>>
>>Could you give examples.
>
> In English;
> Verb: "employ"
> Agent-nominalization: "employer"
> Patient-nominalization: "employee"
>
> Verb: "cut"
> Agent-nominalization: "cutter"
> Instrument-nominalization: "cutter"
> Effected-result-nominaliztion: "cut"
>
> Verb: "discover"
> Agent-nominalization: "discoverer"
> Effected-result-nominalization: "discovery"
> Event-nominalization: "discovery"
>
> Verb: "brew"
> Agent-nominalization: "brewer"
> Effected-result-nominalization: "brew"
> Place-nominalization: "brewery"
>
> And so on.
Right - these are all deverbal noun. The terminology is slightly
unusual, but there is nothing unusual about these nouns.
> ("Event-nominalizations" wouldn't denote a "participant".
Why should they? There is, as far as I know, no requirement for this.
the SIL definition of 'nominalization' is:
"A nominalization is a noun phrase that has a systematic correspondence
with a clausal predication which includes a head noun morphologically
related to a corresponding verb."
[snip]
> But the agent (if there is one) and the patient (if there is one) are
> always "participants".)
Of course, by definition agents and patients must be 'participants'!
[snip]
>>Are you thinking in terms of something like Tagalog verbal forms which some
>>people regard syntactically as nouns?
>
> That sounds interesting in its own right whether it's what I meant or not.
> And it sounds as if it could include examples of what I meant.
No, it doesn't.
[snip]
>>
>>Without examples, I am not certain. But my feeling that what you are
>>getting at is something different.
>
> If Trask's definition of "participle" (not all of which you quoted?)
> doesn't say anything about participation, and Trask's is corrrect and the
> Wikipedia's definition is incorrect, then you are probably right and I was
> getting at something else.
Nearly all of Trask's definition has been quoted in this mail. No, he
doesn't mention "participation". IMO the Wikipedia definition is poorly
worded.
> I was looking for an "umbrella term" to cover all verbal nouns which
> denoted participants in the verb from which they were derived.
Participles are verbal _adjectives_ (true, those languages that readily
allow adjectives as substantives will treat participles the same, for
example: Latin 'amans' = 'lover'). Verbal nouns are a rather different
thing - infinitives & gerunds.
> But you proposed, below, some examples of the kinds of verbal nouns I was
> talking about; though as you say in each of the examples below, the
> participle in these cases is actually a verbal adjective used as if it were
> a substantive noun.
>
>
>>By participial noun I would understand a participle being used as a noun,
>>e.g. Latin 'amans' (loving) used nominally to mean 'a loving person, a
>>lover';
>
>
> That would be one of them.
Right - we can't do that in English. We only use adjectives as as
substantives when we have a plural or collective meaning, e.g. the poor
... , the starving ..., the rich ..., the living..., the dead ...
>
>>so also in Esperanto, _esperanta_ "hoping" --> _esperanto_ "a person who
>>hopes" :)
>
> That also would be one of them.
See above. I think calling these verbal nouns is misleading. These are
participles used substantively. By verbal noun people will assume you
mean something like an infinitive or gerund.
>
>>>Some of them might still inflect for tense or mood or such things.
>>
>>In that participles may reflect time/aspect difference. There is in
>>Esperanto an unofficial 'conditional participle' (esperunta "who would
>>hope") used by some - but it is unofficial, and I cannot think at the
>>moment of a natlang that shows modal distinctions in the non-finite
>>parts of the verb.
>
> Well, there's "intended" or "intendo" for a husband-to-be; that inflection
> is as much modal as temporal. That is, it refers as much to the fact that
> the marriage is intended instead of actual, as to the fact that it is
> future instead of past.
That in the meaning of "intend" - nothing to do with participle per_se.
> Also consider, say, the verb "shoot".
> (In the following, forgive my use of the adjective "participial"; I've put
> it in quotes to indicate that it should eventually be replaced with
> whatever adjective I should have used instead.)
> One could have a present, active "participial" noun meaning "the one who is
> shooting right now".
> One could have a past, active "participial" noun meaning "the one who has
> shot".
> One could have a present, passive "participial" noun meaning "the one who
> is being shot right now".
> One could have a past, passive "participial" noun meaning "the one who was
> shot".
Esperanto does - I have said nothing to contradict that.
[snip]
>
>>>Would any of them qualify as infinitives or gerunds?
>>
>>Not the things I understand as 'participial nouns'
>
> That's what I thought too.
> My follow-up question would be "why not"?
> They are verbal nouns (not deverbal nouns).
Misleading IMO. They are nominal uses of participles.
[snip]
> But I have the feeling that's not enough to qualify them as infinitives or
> gerunds.
> So what else is necessary?
> I'm having trouble putting it into words.
infinitive:
"A non-finite form occurring in some (but not all) languages and
typically serving to express the meaning of the verb in the abstract,
with no marking for or restriction in tense, aspect, mood or person
(though some languages exhibit two or more infinitives distinguished in
tense or aspect).
[Trask]
_gerund_ on the other hand is strictly *language specific*. It is
usually given to a form that functions as a verbal noun, in a similar
way to the infinitive, but is differently formed. But I have across the
term used in the description of some language to denote an verbal
adverb. There can be no general definition of 'gerund' because, as I
say, its use is language specific.
I've snipped the rest because I hoped I've explained myself more clearly
>
> Thank you, Ray.
You're welcome.
--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB}