[Grammar] take to Ving, (gerund or present participle?)

Status
Not open for further replies.

sitifan

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 30, 2006
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
Chinese
Home Country
Taiwan
Current Location
Taiwan
—usually used with a following present participle
take to drinking/smoking
He's recently taken to staying up late on weekends.
A few of her classmates took to calling her Pipi, after Pippi Longstocking …— Calvin Tomkins
Recently, he'd taken to wearing tuxedos and suits and had gotten a new car, she said.— Laura Italiano and Tamar Lapin
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/take to

I think that the Ving following "take to" is a gerund, not a present participle. Am I right?
 

jutfrank

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
The term 'present participle' means it's in the -ing form.

In class, I call it a gerund or an '-ing form'.
 

Phaedrus

Banned
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
—usually used with a following present participle
take to drinking/smoking
He's recently taken to staying up late on weekends.
A few of her classmates took to calling her Pipi, after Pippi Longstocking …— Calvin Tomkins
Recently, he'd taken to wearing tuxedos and suits and had gotten a new car, she said.— Laura Italiano and Tamar Lapin
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/take to

I think that the Ving following "take to" is a gerund, not a present participle. Am I right?

Since the -ing phrase can be replaced by it in each case, it is clear that the -ing phrase is functioning as a substantive in each example. That is, the -ing phrase is functioning in each example as the object or complement of the preposition to.

However, an -ing phrase's functioning as a substantive does not by itself guarantee that the -ing word is a gerund. A gerund phrase is a noun phrase, not a verb phrase. Noun phrases can be modified by adjectives, not adverbs, and they don't have direct objects.

In took to calling her Pipi, her is the direct object of calling and Pipi an object complement. Therefore, calling her Pipi is a verb phrase, not a noun phrase. That means that it is not a gerund. It is a verb phrase, headed by the present participle calling, and is functioning as a substantive.

In take to drinking/smoking, we need more to decide between the two analyses. If the -ing word is a gerund, then if we speak of something's being drunk or smoked, it will be introduced within an of-phrase: He took to the (slow) smoking of cigars. By contrast, smoking here is a present participle:

He took to (slowly) smoking cigars.

Consider the ungrammaticality of *[strike]He took to slow smoking cigars[/strike] and *[strike]He took to the slowly smoking of cigars[/strike].
 

PaulMatthews

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2016
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
Great Britain
Current Location
Great Britain
—usually used with a following present participle
take to drinking/smoking
He's recently taken to staying up late on weekends.
A few of her classmates took to calling her Pipi, after Pippi Longstocking …— Calvin Tomkins
Recently, he'd taken to wearing tuxedos and suits and had gotten a new car, she said.— Laura Italiano and Tamar Lapin
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/take to

I think that the Ving following "take to" is a gerund, not a present participle. Am I right?

Yes: traditional grammar calls the ing forms in your examples gerunds, since the clauses they head are functioning as complement to a preposition (“to”), a function typically filled by a noun phrase.

Consider this pair:

[1] I see he has recently taken to [smoking cigars again].
[2] I see he is [smoking cigars again].

In [1] traditional grammar calls “smoking” a gerund, and in [2] a present participle.

But as Piscean touched on, modern grammar asserts that there is no justification for making any inflectional distinction between the verbs in [1] and [2]: they both belong to a single inflectional category called ‘gerund-participle’.
 

jutfrank

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
I'd like to add that although modern grammarians see no justification in making a distinction between the underlined words in the examples above, there is good pedagogical justification to be made, from the perspective of English language teachers.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Phaedrus

Banned
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Yes: traditional grammar calls the ing forms in your examples gerunds, since the clauses they head are functioning as complement to a preposition (“to”), a function typically filled by a noun phrase.

Consider this pair:

[1] I see he has recently taken to [smoking cigars again].
[2] I see he is [smoking cigars again].

In [1] traditional grammar calls “smoking” a gerund, and in [2] a present participle.

But as Piscean touched on, modern grammar asserts that there is no justification for making any inflectional distinction between the verbs in [1] and [2]: they both belong to a single inflectional category called ‘gerund-participle’.

Traditional grammar aside, gerunds are nouns and participles verbs, and they can easily and usefully be distinguished, even if not in all cases.

(See post #5.)
 

PaulMatthews

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2016
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
Great Britain
Current Location
Great Britain
Gerunds are verbs. Some ing verbs happen to have noun forms that are best called gerundial nouns. Yes, the two forms can be distinguished by applying some simple tests.

Present participles are also verbs, though some have adjective forms that are best called 'participial adjectives', reserving ‘participle’ for the verbs.
 

PaulMatthews

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2016
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
Great Britain
Current Location
Great Britain
It's no wonder that some learners have problems.

Indeed: the subject of gerunds vs present participles must surely rank as one of the most frequently asked questions by learners. The most important thing in this thread is that the OP got a solid answer to their question (see #6).

This may help: Gerunds are not nouns; they are verbs. They are one of the secondary forms in the verb paradigm. The fact that some gerunds are functionally similar to nouns does not mean that they are in fact nouns. Those ing forms that function as heads of non-finite clauses are verbs, while those that function as heads of NPs are nouns (gerundial nouns).

Consider this pair:

[1] They were criticised for killing the seals. [verb]
[2] I witnessed the killing of the seals. [noun]

In [1] “killing” is a verb, traditionally called a gerund. There is nothing to be gained by calling it a noun. It’s clearly a verb by virtue of it having an NP object and the fact that it can be modified by an adverb (… for cruelly killing the seals).

By contrast, killing is a noun in [2] by virtue of it combining with the determiner the, and the fact that it can be inflected for plural (these killings must stop).


Present participles are verbs, but some also have adjective forms that are best called 'participial adjectives', reserving the term 'participle' for the verbs. Consider this pair:

[3] The Smiths are entertaining their neighbours this evening. [verb]
[4] The show was very entertaining. [adjective]

In [1] entertaining is a verb by virtue of it having an NP object and the fact that it can be modified by an adverb (... are probably entertaining).

In [2] entertaining is an adjective by virtue of it being modified by the degree adverb very.
 

PaulMatthews

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2016
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
Great Britain
Current Location
Great Britain
Huddleston and Pullum (2002.82-920 also discuss participles and gerunds. They conclude: we reject an analysis that has gerund and participle as different forms syncretised throughout the class of verbs. We have therefore just one inflectional form of the verb marked by the -ing suffix; we label it with the compound term ‘gerund-participle’.

Which is exactly what I said in #6.

My answer #12 was of course based on trad grammar.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

jutfrank

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
So I think we all agree that -ing words are best considered to belong to one inflectional category, but that they can be used in lots of different ways.
 

PaulMatthews

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2016
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
Great Britain
Current Location
Great Britain
So I think we all agree that -ing words are best considered to belong to one inflectional category, but that they can be used in lots of different ways.
The verb forms, yes.

However, the ing nouns and the ing adjectives belong to the category (part of speech) noun and adjective respectively, as in examples [2] and [4] in my answer #12.
 
Last edited:

jutfrank

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
The verb forms, yes.

However, the ing nouns and the ing adjectives belong to the category (part of speech) noun and adjective respectively, as in examples [2] and [4] in my answer #12.

Okay. Got it. Thanks.
 

Phaedrus

Banned
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Gerunds are verbs. Some ing verbs happen to have noun forms that are best called gerundial nouns. Yes, the two forms can be distinguished by applying some simple tests.

Gerunds are nouns. They are formed like this: [verb+ing]. They head noun phrases, can be introduced by determiners, take adjectives as modifiers, do not have direct objects, etc. What you are calling a "gerundial noun" is a gerund.

As far as I can tell, you only acknowledge the existence of gerunds from the standpoint of traditional grammar. The things that you call gerunds from that standpoint are not gerunds at all. They are present participles -- verbs.

Why do you insist on calling gerunds "gerundial nouns"? Is anything to be gained by denying them the name of gerund, to which they are entitled? Incidentally, I do not bow down to CGEL. I have it from the highest authority that gerunds are nouns formed by [verb+ing].

The most important thing in this thread is that the OP got a solid answer to their question (see #6).
Whether that is the post in which the "solid answer" is contained is a matter of perception.
 

Phaedrus

Banned
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Who or what is the highest authority in the field of English grammar?

Huddleston and Pullum are two of the world's best grammarians, but I have studied under at least one linguist whom I, quite subjectively, rank higher.
 

Phaedrus

Banned
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
May we ask the name of this great grammar guru?

PaulMatthews basically preaches CGEL gospel, but never credits any source besides himself. The person of whom I speak, who is not a "guru" but simply a linguist of extraordinary expertise in the area of syntax and morphology, was a close colleague of Pullum's for roughly 20 years at a university in California. I believe he hired Pullum.

It has occurred to me that PaulMatthews is probably referring to lexicalized gerunds with his phrase "gerundial nouns." Thus, when an -ing form like reading or painting is used as a gerund -- a noun formed by [verb+ing] -- and has made it into the dictionary as a lexicalized noun, PaulMatthews dubs it a "gerundial noun."

As I understand gerunds (not by the authority to whom I alluded, but by my own reasoning in light of the authoritative guidance I received), they exist as a productive morphosynactic class in English. The -ing suffix enables lexical verbs to be used as derived nouns, and once in a while those derived nouns get lexicalized.
 

Phaedrus

Banned
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
So Paul never credits any source besides himself. You, however credit a linguist of extraordinary expertise in the area of syntax and morphology, whom you 'rank higher' than H & P. That's OK, then.

As you well know, there is no comparison whatsoever: I regularly cite a multiplicity of sources, almost in every thread here in which I participate.
 

Phaedrus

Banned
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
'
 
Last edited:

jutfrank

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2014
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
Do we consider it grammatical to say, for example:

His deliberately not making sense is frustrating.

It seems okay to me. The subject has features of both a noun (DP) and a verb (DO and adverb modifier).
 
Last edited:

Phaedrus

Banned
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Do we consider it grammatical to say, for example:

His deliberately not making sense is frustrating.

It seems okay to me. The subject has features of both a noun (DP) and a verb (DO and adverb modifier).

Yes, that's definitely grammatical. Traditional grammar would incorrectly label the subject DP ("noun phrase") a gerund.

The subject DP is headed by the possessive morpheme (a determiner), and that head has a VP complement (making sense), modified by an adverb.

I find Piscean's "like" suspect. Is your example supposed to be aimed at me somehow? I shall suppose it is not, since I have sought to make sense.
 

GoesStation

No Longer With Us (RIP)
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
I find Piscean's "like" suspect. Is your example supposed to be aimed at me somehow? I shall suppose it is not, since I have sought to make sense.
I can't speak for Piscean, but my "like" was meant to agree with the statement It seems okay to me.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top