Present-day English gerunds: a multilayered referential model

Recent studies into the semantics of English gerund constructions have successfully uncovered meaning differences between nominal and verbal gerunds by adopting a referential perspective on their semantics (Fonteyn et al. 2015a). Referential research of gerundive nominalizations, however, still struggles with a number of issues, mainly centering around the position of verbal gerunds within the traditionally nominal domain of referentiality. This paper wishes to address these issues by establishing a comprehensive and multilayered model of referentiality which can be applied to both ordinary as well as less prototypical noun phrases. Central to the multilayered model that is proposed here are two claims. First of all, it is argued that the concept of definiteness needs to be disentangled from that of specificity. While definiteness is a typically nominal feature associated with determination, specificity is a more flexible concept which can be expressed through various nominal as well as clausal mechanisms of “referential anchorage” (von Heusinger 2002). Secondly, the model looks at the type of mental space in which the referent is accessed. It has been argued that specific expressions are associated with “actual” or realis mental spaces, whereas non-specific entities are typically linked to “virtual” or irrealis spaces. It is argued here, however, that deverbal nominalizations like gerunds show that specificity can be realized independently of the mental space the entity is located in. In the second part of this paper, the multilayered model that is proposed is applied and integrated in a corpus-based analysis of Present-day English nominal and verbal gerunds. It is shown that the model clears the way for a fine-grained description of the functional differences between both gerund types that, more than any other existing analysis, reveals the different degrees of formal nouniness of nominal and verbal gerunds. Mapping out the interactions between (in)definiteness, (non-)specificity and actuality/virtuality, it will be concluded, allows us to situate the various subtypes of nominal and verbal gerunds more accurately on the cline of functional nouniness and get a firmer grip on the gerund’s symbolic potential.status: publishe