The Dangling Behaviour of Clausal Gerunds

Abstract

Constructions headed by(v-ing) 1 in English are divided into several types that pattern with noun phrases and regular clauses. This paper proposes an analysis of the types of(v-ing) constructions where the subject is either in the accusative case, called clausal gerunds, or in the genitive case, called passive-ing( henceforth poss-ing).Sometimes, clausal gerunds behave in most respects like clauses(Reuland, 1983:16).In this paper,there is a list of several properties that distinguish clausal gerunds not only from regular clauses but sometimes also from(poss-ing) constructions(Abeny,1987:33 and Williams,1975:56).(Poss-ing) constructions, on the other hand, have been shown to pattern with regular clauses in many respects. Abeny(1987:105) argues that both(poss-ing) and clausal gerunds should be analyzed as either regular clauses or noun phrases at some point in the derivation. As a result, clausal gerunds and(poss-ing) sometimes behave like each other and sometimes not. Therefore, the important question here is how far these types are different and how far they are similar.