Re: USAGE: "Laughingly":What part of speech is it?

Hi,

On Fri, 2 Oct 1998, Gerald Koenig wrote:

> I'd like to know a little more about the grammar of a gerund that is
> changed into an adverb . I'm going to make a gender changer that changes
> a root or infinitive verb to a corresponding adverb for vector tense.
> I want to say things like,
>
> He goes walkingly to the store.
>
> Obviously this isn't great english, but for some reason,
>
> He said laughingly that he didn't mean it.
>
> seems ok.
>
> Any information about these  gerund-adverbs would help me.
Gerunds are usually  termed as "verbal nouns". What we have above in yr
examples are adverbs made out of certain "verbal adjectives", ie.,
participles, in specific, the present active participle.

It is a pity that English has conflated these two different functions,
since neither in German nor in the Scandinavian langs is that the case.
In these langs, the two functions are formally distinguished: the former
is marked by -ung/-ning, the latter, -end. Thus, yr first sentence
translated into German wd be:

  Er geht spazierend zum Laden.

Nota: German does not mark adverbs apart from adjectives.

However these days the -ung/-ning forms in German/Scandinavian take on
more physical meanings than would correspond to a gerund. Thus:
Bezeichnung/betekning derived from the verbs bezeichnen/betekna/"signify"
do not mean the 'act of signifying' but 'significance'. As in English and
Latin (as pointed out by Ray) the infinitive can serve duty as a gerund,
with the following reservations. In German, at least, this function of the
infinitive can go beyond its usage in nominal/accusative cases.

The infinitive in German treated as a gerund takes on the neuter gender
and the word order of its complements is reversed with respect to the
that of infinitival construction (which in turn is reversed wrt the
English word order!). Thus:

        * auf Hans warten = to wait for John
        * das Warten auf Hans = waiting for John
        * die Zeitdauer meines Wartens auf Hans = the duration of my
                                                  waiting for John


As in English, there are no word-order gymnastics in the Scandinavian
langs :). Thus: "att arbeta med deg"/'working with you', "att leva i
Sjaelland"/'living in Zealand', etc. However, I do not know whether the
infinitival construction as a gerund can be used also in cases other than
nominative and accusative.

Regards,
skrintha