Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1989. 19/3. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 19)

Abkarovits, Endre: Contradictions in Describing and Using the -ing Form as Object. (Complement)

verbals, the gerund is said to have some traits in common with the noun, and the participle has certain adjective or adverb characteristics. Some authors divide even the gerund into two types: gerund proper and verbal noun. The former has only certain noun characteristics (it can be the object or subject of the sentence, it can be preceded by a possessive pronoun / noun in the genitive, etc.), while the latter has acguired all the traits of the noun (it is used in the plural, it can be preceded by an article or an adjective, etc.). In my paper it is only gerund proper that is considered to be gerund. This classification problem may explain the phenomenon that in some dictionaries, although no gerund pattern is indicated, the dictionary itself gives examples with the -in

g form. The reason - apart from possible inattention - may be that they are felt to be (verbal) nouns by some authors. At the same time other authors do not separate the verbal noun from the gerund, which is made clear by their definitions or examples. (Swan: 332, AEP: 145, Sch: 177-185, Zandvoort: 24) There are certaio functions where the distinction between gerund and participle seems to be illogical and unpractical. It is always difficult to make students accept that the -in

g form in the sentence 'On entering the liouse, 1 found a burglar in my room.' is a gerund, while in 'Entering the house, I found a burglar in my room.' is a participle. I think however that it is just the function of the object (complement) where the distinction makes some sense, as this may be usually (but not always) the criterion for using or not using the possessive. 'I like his/him playing the violin.' - gerund '1 heard him playing the violin.' - participle Host authors agree which verbs belong to the second type and they also agree that the possessive cannot precede the participle. It is far more complicated what the choice depends on in the first type. Dictionaries and grammar books do not dedicate enough attention to this problem. Most of them suggest that it is mainly a matter of style: possessive/genitive is mainly restricted to formal, written language, accusative is preferred in spoken language and in the case of inanimate objects, longer phrases, and other parts of speech used as nouns. Some hooks make however clear that the issue is not as simple as ttiat, they