Re: Infinitives & gerunds: -- Participles, Verbal Nouns, Nominalized Verbs

Eldin Raigmore wrote:
> I have read the definition of a participle is a verbal adjective that
> refers to a participant in the verb.  (Or something like that; forgive me
> if the quote is not perfect).
Participle:
"Any of various non-finite verb forms which act as the heads of verbs
phrases functioning as adjectival or adverbial modifiers..."
[Trask]

I'm not sure what you mean by "participant in the verb". They can, of
course, as heads of adjectival phrases, modify the subject of the verb
or, indeed, any of its other noun arguments.

> There are several verbal nouns (or deverbal nouns or nominalized verbs)
I;m not sure what meaning of "or" is intended. But it verbal nouns are
*not* the same thing as deverbal nouns. A verbal noun is nominalized
form derived from a verb *which still retains some verbal functions*, in
particular they make have have verbal object arguments and are modified
by adverbs (not adjectives) - they are infinitives and.or gerunds.

A deverbal noun is a straight noun formed from a verb; it has no verbal
functions, e.g. realization <-- realize; development <-- develop etc.

I am not clear what you mean by "nominalized verbs."

> which refer to a participant in the verb; agent-nominalization, patient-
> nominalization, place-nominalization, instrument-nominalization, time-
> nominaliztion, and of course event-nominalization, are all examples that
> come to mind.
Could you give examples. I am not clear what you are getting at. Are you
  thinking in terms of something like Tagalog verbal forms which some
people regard syntactically as nouns?

> Would it make sense to call verbal nouns such as these "participial nouns"
> or some such term?
Without examples, I am not certain. But my feeling that what you are
getting at is something different. 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'; so also in
Esperanto, _esperanta_ "hoping" --> _esperanto_ "a person who hopes"  :)

> 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. (There is no reason why a conlang should not
experiment with such forms).

> Would any of them qualify as infinitives or gerunds?
Not the things I understand as 'participial nouns' - but, as I say, I am
not clear what you are getting with 'nominalized verbs', so I cannot say
whether I think they qualify or not.

I would expect we
> would prefer to keep most of them as "participial nouns", and let only the
> event-nominalizations be infinitives or gerunds.  Is my expectation correct?
Only verbal nouns (and *not* deverbal nouns) would be reckoned
infinitives and/or gerunds IMO.

--
Ray
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http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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