Nominal and verbal gerunds in Present-day English: Aspectual features and nominal status

In this paper we want to add to the comparative description of Present-day English nominal and verbal gerundive nominalizations, by presenting the results of a quantitative, corpus-based analysis of their aspectual features. It will be shown that, in general, the claim that gerunds designate unbounded activities or activities that are in progress cannot be upheld – because a significant number of both nominal and verbal gerunds denote non-durative situations (achievements, semelfactives) or telic ones (accomplishments), and because most gerunds lack explicit markers of ‘completeness’ or ‘ongoingness’. As regards the distinction between nominal and verbal gerunds, it will be shown that nominal gerunds are attested significantly more often with activities and are more often explicitly marked for temporal bounding or for ongoingness, whereas, compared to nominal gerunds, verbal gerunds represent significantly more often achievements or semelfactives and they are more often than nominal gerunds neutral or unmarked in terms of temporal bounding. These findings are shown to tie in with a number of recent functional-semantic accounts of the English gerund and shed new light on the categorial gradience between nominal and verbal gerunds.status: publishe