Pluperfect Progressive - Deverbal Uses

Deverbal Uses

Certain words are formed from verbs, but are used as common nouns or adjectives, without any of the grammatical behavior of verbs. These are sometimes called verbal nouns or adjectives, but they are also called deverbal nouns and deverbal adjectives, to distinguish them from the truly "verbal" forms such as gerunds and participles.

Besides its non-finite verbal uses as a gerund or present participle, the -ing form of a verb is also used as a deverbal noun, denoting an activity or occurrence in general, or a specific action or event (or sometimes a more distant meaning, such as building or piping denoting an object or system of objects). One can compare the construction and meaning of noun phrases which are formed using the -ing form as a gerund, and of those which are formed using the same -ing form as a deverbal noun. Some points are noted below:

• The gerund can behave like a verb in taking objects: crossing the river cost many lives. The deverbal noun does not take objects, although the understood object may be expressed by a prepositional phrase with of: the crossing of the river cost many lives (an indirect object is expressed using to or for as appropriate: the giving of the award to John).
• The gerund takes modifiers (such as adverbs) that are appropriate to verbs: eating heartily is good for the health. The deverbal noun instead takes modifiers appropriate to nouns (especially adjectives): his hearty eating is good for his health.
• The deverbal noun can also take determiners, such as the definite article (particularly in denoting a single action rather than a general activity): the opening of the bridge was delayed. Gerunds do not normally take determiners except for possessives (as described below).
• Both deverbal nouns and gerunds can be preceded by possessive determiners to indicate the agent (logical subject) of the action: my taking a bath (see also above under gerund and at fused participle for the possible replacement of my with me); my taking of a bath. However with the deverbal noun there are also other ways to express the agent:
  • Using a prepositional phrase with of, assuming that no such phrase is needed to express an object: the singing of the birds (with a gerund, this would be the birds' singing). In fact both possessives and of phrases can be used to denote both subjects and objects of deverbal nouns, but the possessive is more common for the subject and of for the object; these are also the assumed roles if both are present: John's wooing of Mary unambiguously denotes a situation where John wooed Mary, not vice versa.
  • Using a prepositional phrase with by (compare similar uses of by with the passive voice): the raising of taxes by the government. This is not possible with the gerund; instead one could say the government's raising taxes.
• Where no subject is specified, the subject of a gerund is generally understood to be the subject (or "interested party") of the main clause: I like singing loudly means I like it when I myself sing; Singing loudly is nice implies the singer is the person who finds it nice. This does not apply to deverbal nouns: I like loud singing is likely to mean that I like it when others sing loudly. This means that a sentence may have alternative meanings depending on whether the -ing form is intended as a gerund or as a deverbal noun: in I like singing either function may be the intended one, but the meaning in each case may be different (I like to sing, if gerund; I like hearing others sing, if deverbal noun).

Some -ing forms, particularly those such as boring, exciting, interesting, can also serve as deverbal adjectives (distinguished from the present participle in much the same way as the deverbal noun is distinguished from the gerund). There are also many other nouns and adjectives derived from particular verbs, such as competition and competitive from the verb compete (as well as other types such as agent nouns). For more information see verbal noun, deverbal noun and deverbal adjective. For more on the distinction between the various uses of the -ing form of verbs, see -ing.