The Subject of the English Gerund

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

1. The purpose of the present study is to observe diachronically the subject of the English gerund and to state its aspects in terms of genitive and common case, and of synthetic and analytic genitive. For the purpose I took the following steps: first, to collect examples out of prose works carefully chosen, leaving and interval of one century between them; second, to classify the examples according to patterns and to enumerate their distribution. I owe my present study요 새 the works of many scholars, such as Jespersen, Poutsma, Zandvoort, Sweet, and Kellner; more than all, to the excellent work of Curme's "History of the English Gerund," English Studien, 45. Readers will easily notice that the present study in done chiefly under the influence of his work.
2.1. The origin of the gerund has been the subject of much consideration. When we look into the works on the gerund, we can at least reach an opinion that there are two views on the subject: first, the origin of the gerund is a pure substantive in Old English; second, its origin is and Old English dative infinitive. The former seems to be based on the form of the gerund, and the latter, on the function.
When the gerund si considered as one of the verbals, its origin may well be sought in the Old English verbals. But it does not follow that the Middle or Modern English gerund form '-ung' or '-ing' derived from the Old English infinitive.
Though in the Old English period the number of the gerund form '-ung' or 'ing' was limited, the form was used, together with the infinitive, from the earlier stage of the language. In other words, the gerund form in '-ung' or '-ing' existed from the earlier days of Old English as a pure substantive. Here we are inclined to support Poutsma's view on the subject: The main source of the gerund is the noun in '-ung' or '-ing', and a secondary source of the gerund is, perhaps, to be traced to the inflected infinitive.
How is it that the main source of the gerund is not a verbal infinitive, but a pure substantive? It is interesting to follow the traces of the development of the gerund.
The gerund began as a pure substantive. and seems to have been formed originally from nouns, such as shipping, shirting, stabling, flooring. As some of the nouns from which the gerund form derived had corresponding weak verbs, the gerund came to e looked upon as the base of the derivatives. Accordingly this led to the new formation from other weak verbs, even including French verbs. Gradually the boundary was extended to strong verbs, and after a long time (about the fifteenth century could be formed from practically any verb.)