I remember reading an article on the differences between 'gerunds' and 'verbal nouns' [...] I think it was in one of Fowler's works. I will try to track it down.
Well, I found a few things in Fowler's
Modern English Usage and
The King's English, but nothing very helpful, and nothing at all on the adjective/adverb question.
Sidney Greenbaum tries to differentiate between:
-
the gerund, a verbal noun: "
They appreciate my visiting their parents regularly". Like a noun, it can be introduced by the genitive
my, but like a verb it takes the direct object
their parents.
-
a noun derived from a verb:
"They appreciate my visiting of their parents".
-
a fused participle. "
They appreciate the neighbours visiting their parents regularly"
. The -
ing form is preced by a non-genitive form.
Though he describes the gerund as a verbal noun in one article, he contrasts verbal nouns with gerunds in another article, saying that the gerund is syntactically a verb.
Barb's need (and mine) for someone with more linguistics knowledge to explain this has not been helped by a former Quain professor of English language and literature and director of the Survey of English Usage
. It appears to me that Greenbaum is trying to cover up with authoritative sounding words the fact that he doesn't know why we use this -ing form in different ways. This does not help us at all.
Greenbaum, Sidney in McArthur, Tom (ed), (1992), The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford: OUP, pages 439 and 1085.