Indefinite Nominal Gerunds, or the Particularization of a Reified Event. Issue 3 (2nd April 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Maekelberghe, Charlotte; Heyvaert, Liesbet
• Is Part Of: English studies. Volume 97:Issue 3(2016)
• Page Start: 317
• Page End: 340
• Publication Date: 2016-04-02
• Subjects: English philology -- Periodicals; English literature -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Philologie anglaise -- Périodiques; Littérature anglaise -- Étude et enseignement -- Périodiques; 420
• DOI: 10.1080/0013838X.2015.1131910
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0013-838X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper focuses on nominal gerunds that combine verb-like semantics with the use of an indefinite article, as in Such reflection enables [a sharing of understandings] . The indefinite article in constructions like these is at first sight irreconcilable with the uncount status of the nominal gerund, and this gerund type has therefore tended to be either neglected or reduced to fully lexicalized (count) nouns. We argue that the use of the indefinite article is functionally motivated but cannot be captured in traditional referential categories, indefinite nominal gerunds being either specific, non-specific or generic and locating their referents in spatio-temporal, virtual or generic space. Instead, it is suggested, indefinite nominal gerunds impose a more schematic type of conceptualization on the event that is reified, that is they conceptualize it as a delineated event. The "particularized", well-delineated event that indefinite nominal gerunds profile, it is shown, is either viewed directly, as a second-order entity, or the perspective that is taken is third-order, conceptualizing the event as an "idea", "problem" or so forth. The delineation imposed by the indefinite article can be contextually supported by the syntactic function assumed by the indefinite nominal gerund, and/or through the use of lexical items.