Re: USAGE: ei and ej (was: Front vowel tensing)

> Date:         Mon, 2 Jul 2001 21:13:31 -0400
> From: John Cowan <cowan@...>
>
> Dan Jones scripsit:
>
> > Bear in mind that most English people (the distinction is still
> > preserved in Wales and Scotland IIRC) pronounce the verb ending
> > -ing as /In/, anyway.
>
> Not unnaturally, since standard -ing is a collapse of the old gerund
> ending -ing and the old participle ending -and, the common element
> of which is /In/.
Actually, it's two different verbal nouns plus the present participle.
Other Germanic languages still maintain the difference, e.g., Danish:

         bivirkning   - side effect
         medvirken    - participation
         modvirkende  - counteracting

The verbal nouns in -(n)ing tend to have perfective and passive
meaning: What happened to the object of the verb. Those in -en are
imperfective and active: The fact that someone is performing the verb.
(It may actually be the same form as the infinitive, I can't check
right now). The active present participle is just that, an adjective.

(The -en forms are indefinite nouns, not to be confused with (frozen)
perfect participles of strong verbs, like drukken, or the definite
form of nouns with the same root, like drikken, or the numerous
pronouns and advebs with some -n morpheme or other, like uden or
hvilken).

German mostly has -ung where Danish has -(n)ing, I think. But these
forms varied quite freely with each other in older Germanic.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)

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