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

Dennis Paul Himes wrote:

> > I am laughing - adjective-like verb
>
>      progressive verb
Though note that a progressive verb is synthetically an auxiliary verbplus a present
participle.

>      gerundive - This is one you left out.  A gerundive is the adjectival
> form of a gerund.
Not quite.  A gerundive is a verbal noun that can take an object.  For
example, in "Your knowing him is a good thing",  "knowing" is a syntactically
a noun, but carries with it verbal properties as it is also taking an object,
"him".  In English, there is no morphological difference between gerunds
and gerundives (or present participles for that matter), hence the confusion,
but other languages don't work that way.  For example, here's the
situation in Degaspregos:

deigakwos           deverbitive noun of "deigein", to make, thus "(a) making"
deigakwantos       noun for progressive aspect, a ongoing "making"
deigakwintos        perfective aspect:  a completed "making"
deigakwentos       prospective:  a making about to be.
deigakwamenos   middle progressive:  ongoing making for oneself...

etc for voices and aspects.

> The difference between a gerundive and a present parti-
> ciple can be seen by these examples.  The hyena laughs.  The gas does not.
All present participles take an -ing suffix.


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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
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"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

"Ille se profecisse sciat cui Cicero valde placebit."
   - poster found on professor's door.
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