Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 3. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 29)

Csaba Ceglédi: On the Constituent Structure of Infinitives and Gerunds in English

92 CSABA CZEGLÉDI (49) a. John's building a spaceship b. NP NP VP John's V NP building a spaceship (cf Abney m7:17

) If one takes categorial, structural, as well as functional criteria into consideration, the following -ing forms may be distinguished (cf. Chomsky 1970, Williams 1975, Quirk et al. 1985, Abney 1987, Pullum and Zwicky 1991, and Laczkó 1995): Progressive -ing: Premodifier -ing: Postmodifier Absolute -ing: Adverbial -ing: Ac c-ing: PRO -ing: Poss -ing: Action nominal: (lng-of) Verbal noun: Deverbal noun: Brown is painting his daughter. the silently painting man The man driving the bus is Norton's best friend. Brown painting his daughter that day, I decided to go for a walk. With me singing madrigals, everyone will be amused. Having died, they were no further use to us. John decided to leave, thinking the party was over. I watched Brown painting his daughter. I enjoyed reading The Bald Soprano. I dislike Brown's painting his daughter, his looking up of the information John's singing of the Marseillaise Brown's deft painting of his daughter Brown's paintings of his daughter Since this paper is concerned with nonfmite complements on verbs, only the following -ing constructions will be relevant to the discussion: Acc-ing, Poss -ing, and (argumental) PRO -ing. Therefore progressive -ing, pre- or postmodifying -ing, absolute (Norn- or Acc-) -ing, adverbial -ing, which are commonly called the 'present participle', will not be discussed.