Строй современного английского языка
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| Gerund and Participle 141
r eality in the present and expected action in the future from a past viewpoint, on the one hand, and would come denoting a repeated action in the past are two different formations sounding the same. 1 Now we come to items (6) and (7), concerning the ing-form or ing-forms in their different applications. The traditional view is, that we have here two homonymous forms: the participle (present or perfect) and the gerund (present or perfect). A more recent view, put forward by E. Kruisinga, is that there are not two different forms sounding the same but one form, which he shortly terms "the ing", being used in various ways in the sentence. It is a peculiar feature of this ing-problem that in some contexts the two "ings" come very close together and additional factors are required to draw a distinction between them. The two "ings" coincide in such sentences as, He was afraid of her knowing the truth,2 where the "ing" is a gerund if her is a possessive pronoun, and a participle if her is a personal pronoun in the objective case; also in the sentence He was glad at John's coming the "ing" is a gerund, but if John's is replaced by John, the "ing" seems to be a participle, though this is not acknowledged by all scholars: M. Deutschbein believed the "ing" to be a gerund in both cases. The question is a very difficult one. Since up to now it has not been possible to find a convincing invariable meaning to cover both participle and gerund, we shall do well again, until such an invariable is discovered, to hold to the traditional view which has it that the participle and the gerund are two essentially different forms sounding the same. This of course applies equally to present and perfect, active and passive participles and gerunds. The last two items of our list include questions connected with the whole system of grammar and the principles of stating grammatical categories. In item (8) the essence of the problem is this. All Modern English verbs, however many they may be, have no distinction of number in the past tense, with one exception only, the verb be, which distinguishes in the past tense between the singular (was) and the plural (were).3 Should this peculiarity of the verb be bring us to the conclusion that the category of number in the past tense exists in all English verbs, and that, accordingly, all verbs 1 From the viewpoint of synchronic analysis of Modern English the fact that the source of the auxiliary would is in both cases the same (past tense of will) is of course irrelevant. 2 The example is taken from M. Deutschbein, System der neuenglischen Syntax, S. 154. 3 We will for the moment overlook the fact that in non-standard English there is a strong tendency to do away with the distinction and to use the form was without regard to number: I was, he was, we was, you was, they was. 142 The Verb: Polysemantic and Homonymous Forms except be have here homonymous forms? This is the view held by L. Bloomfield. Bloomfield thinks that the existence of one word of a certain category, which has a certain grammatical distinction, is sufficient reason for stating that all words of that category have that distinction, and all of them but the one in question have homonymous forms. In his own words, "The existence of even a single over-differentiated paradigm implies homonymy in the regular paradigms." 1 This view, however, is completely arbitrary and unacceptable. If we were to endorse it, we should arrive at very strange conclusions indeed. For example, starting from the fact that two English words which may be used as attributes to a noun, namely the words this and that, have a distinction between singular and plural (they agree in number with their head word, e. g. this street, but these streets, that street, but those streets), we might infer that all words thus used also have the category of number; for example, we should have to say that the word new has a distinction of singular and plural: in the phrase new house the word new is in the singular, but in the phrase new houses it is in the plural; the singular and the plural forms would be homonyms. Besides being queer in itself, such a view would lead to a very peculiar interpretation of the development of a language. We interpret the development of adjective morphology in English by saying that the category of number, which was clearly expressed in Old English and to some extent in Middle English, has completely disappeared in Modern English, the adjectives having become invariable except for degrees of comparison. If we were to endorse Bloomfield's view we should have to say that the category of number in adjectives has not disappeared, that it still exists, but the forms of singular and plural have become homonymous. That view would give a distorted idea of the development of the language. So the fact that one verb, namely be, has preserved a distinction of number in the past tense, will not influence our view of the past tense of all other verbs. The other consideration that has been put forward in this respect deserves special attention: the verb be takes part as an auxiliary in the formation of the past continuous, past passive, and past continuous passive of all verbs having those forms, and in so far it may be said that these verbs have a distinction of number in these forms; for example, the verb write has a distinction of number in the past continuous, past passive, and past continuous passive. Does this fact, or does it not, lead to the conclusion that there is a distinction of number in the past tense of all verbs generally? For L. Bloomfield, Language, 1955, p. 224. The Verb Be 143 e xample, from the fact that there is a distinction between was writing I were writing, was written I were written, was being written / were being written, does it follow that there is the same distinction between (he) wrote / (they) wrote, the forms being homonymous? This appears to be one of those questions which admit of different opinions rather than of a definite objective solution that might be described as the only correct one. Generally speaking, a negative answer would seem rather more appropriate: it is fair to say that there is a distinction of number in the past forms enumerated above but not in the past indefinite, active. However, the other view might also be defended. The same thing is true about the distinction in number between the first person singular of the verb be (am) and the first person plural of this verb (are): it should not be considered sufficient reason to establish this difference of number in all other verbs and to say that, for example, the forms (I) write and (we) write are homonyms. As to the argument that the verb be is used to form the present continuous, present passive, and present continuous passive of other verbs, so that these tense forms have a distinction of number in the first person, it will have to be treated in the same way as the corresponding argument about number in the past tense: as a problem admitting of opinions rather than a definite solution, with much to be said in favour of a negative answer. |