Today, I want to study the principle of the abstract noun phrase so, can any teacher explain me its principle. By the way, when you are giving me its principle I want you to be sure, although I get its principle but it confused me. After that I will do some exercises so get ready teachers.
Is this principle is OK?
The + playing + of + football
But when there is a name or a pronoun, will it be like this?
Peter
's + playing + of + football
His + Playing + of + football
Does present perfect tense, past perfect tense, present perfect continuous tense, or past perfect continuous tense works well with this principle?
Can we say:
Peter's + playing + of + football +
has been an exiting sport for him. / has made him happy.
[STRIKE]This thread is special to the teachers for clarification not students![/STRIKE] This thread is for all ;-)
Thank you in advance.
Just one or two points that may be of help:
1. Rather than 'abstract nouns'
per se, what we are actually dealing with here is the use of the
gerund (a kind - but only one kind - of abstract noun).
2. Although formally identical, gerunds fall functionally into two types:
simple gerunds, which combine verbal and nominal (noun-like) powers, and
participial nouns, which are simply nouns in -ing derived from verbs.
The difference between them is that the former can simultaneously stand as the subject or object of a verb (like any noun) and yet govern an object and take adverbial modification (like any verb), as illustrated by 'playing' in
[1]
Do you mind my quietly playing the piano while you read?
which both stands as object of the verb 'mind' and governs in turn NP 'the piano' as its own object, whilst being modified by adverb 'quietly'.
Simple gerunds can be determined by possessive adjectives (my, his, etc.) or possessive-case nouns (John's, the doctor's, etc.)** serving to denote the agent of the action, but not by articles.
Thus we cannot have e.g.
[1a]
*Do you mind the quietly playing the piano while you read?
A participial noun, on the other hand, is the exact opposite: it can neither govern an object nor take adverbial modification, and it can be (in fact, almost always is) determined by the definite article. E.g.
[2]
The playing of pianos late at night is strictly prohibited here.
where 'playing' connects to its notional object, like any noun denoting a transitive action, by means of a genitive phrase (of pianos), and any modification of it would be by means of an adjective, e.g.
The noisy playing of pianos...
and not an adverb,
*
The noisily playing of pianos...
3. Regarding the question of tense-usage, no special conditions or restrictions apply to gerunds of either kind. Thus, provided e.g. a present perfect is deemed acceptable in a sentence according to all of the normal criteria (time frame, etc.), it makes no difference whether the subject of the sentence is a gerund or any other noun or noun-like item.
4. Regarding the appropriate
choice between simple gerund construction and participial noun construction, it will be made essentially on the basis of the existence or otherwise of a specific subject. Where an action is conceived of as being performed by a particular individual, we will naturally employ a simple gerund (as in [1]) , since only then can a subject be specified. When, however, as in [2], it is understood as applying generally to everyone, then a participial noun construction is the norm.
** N.B. Colloquially, however, objective-case pronouns and common-case nouns tend to serve here, giving e.g.
Do you mind me/Peter playing the piano?
instead of
...my/Peter's...