Talk:Gerundive

English gerundive?

I was always told (in an attempt to make me understand the Latin gerundive form) that there is at least one English gerundive: the word "Reverend", as applied to Scottish Presbyterian ministers.

JohnBrand 16:00, 18 April 2007 (UTC)JohnBrand

One could argue that Reverend resembles a Latin gerundive in terms of meaning, but that doesn't make it an English gerundive. —Ruakh_TALK 16:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

From the article: "Not every language has gerundives; for example, English does not." I disagree that English does not have gerundives. Verbal adjectives are gerundives, and verbal adjectives are part of the English language. Take the sentence, "I like flying planes." "Flying" can be either a gerund or a gerundive (verbal adjective) in that sentence depending on the meaning of the sentence. B 22:33, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Gerundives are usually verbal adjectives, but not all verbal adjectives are gerundives. English verbal adjectives are participles, not gerundives. —Ruakh_TALK 23:19, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Ruakh should declare his American Jewish roots, which disable his NPOV on the grounds that he appears to share the American cultural dislike of titles (cf their grammatical refusal to capitalise the titles of royalty). An American of Israeli affiliation is not therefore well-qualified to debate a long-established usage within the Scottish Kirk and other Protestant churches: I would doubt if he has ever even set foot in one, quite apart from having studied and been involved in one? At least I can say that I last discussed a theological point with the President of the Jewish congregation of the nation I live in six weeks ago, for all that I'm Protestant!

His argument that not all verbal adjectives are gerundives can also be inverted to say that some are, and in this case the construct was clearly meant in the gerundive sense of "Worthy of worship". Furthermore, he appears to suggest that it is an artificial construction based on a Latin precedent. This may at best be used as an argument for tautology, because English specifically and deliberately has no rules forbidding artificial construction of words, it is in fact actively promoted on websites like the BBC News Magazine's, where a neologism "flexicon" has been coined to classify exactly such activities. In refutation of the tautology, however, the word has subsequently acquired professional overtones which add to the gerundive capacity in a more abstract manner, implying authority, which is a distinctively different class of gerundive. Similarly, "Protestant" is now more than a statement of faith, it is a creed and as such has moved beyond the gerund into the gerundive, similarly suggesting a quality of virtue. In this respect, the nominal use of a number of religious adjectives (such as "Catholic" and "Jewish", amongst others) has also moved beyond the adjectival into this form of the gerundive.

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I'll admit I'm no expert, but I was told in High School that gerundives do exist in English, for example "Swimming pool", the "Swimming" is a verbal adjective, ie:gerundive. Is this incorrect?

Phenie 20:43, 16 May 2007 (GMT+2)

I would say that "swimming" is a gerund, and "swimming pool" is a combined noun, like "fish pond" or "shipping lane". Gingekerr 18:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I have heard gerundive used to mean verbal adjective (taking it as a blend of gerund and adjective), but firstly, that's not standard terminology, and secondly, that's not what's happening in your example. In your example, swimming is a gerund being used attributively; "swimming pool" means "pool for swimming". —Ruakh_TALK 18:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

But it does not mean "pool which is swimming" which would be the participle use of the word. A gerundive is simply a gerund used as an adjective. Saying it is a "pool for swimming" does not change this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.41.251.236 (talk)

By analogy with Latin, 'swimming' in this context is behaving almost exactly like the Latin, in that it is a verbal adjective in the passive voice with no tense. Whether this is sufficient for it to be declared a gerundive is unclear: as the introduction states, gerundives in different languages behave in different ways, and Latin is not necessarily the best source for comparison (consider the hassle that split infinitives have caused!) I would add that, if this is indeed an example of an English gerundive, further examples might be 'parking space', 'shopping cart', 'skipping rope', etc. Xpic (talk) 07:58, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Swimming in this context is not remotely like anything in Latin. Swimming pool can be seen either as a compound noun or as a head noun pool with a premodifier swimming. Even if we take the latter view, swimming is a noun premodifier, not an adjective. We can't say *The pool seems swimming or *a very swimming pool or *a more swimming pool. Nor is it a verb. The pool is not swimming. I don't even think it's useful to label it as a gerund. We don't say *a swimming to international standards pool or a *a schoolchildren swimming pool. DavidCrosbie (talk) 13:33, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Disputed

I think the time has come to take another look at the article and determine what facts, if any, are still under dispute. Discussions at /Archive 1 might be relevant for this, to the extent that we can sort through them. :-) —Ruakh_TALK 18:28, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

The Archive discussions contribute little. Perhaps the argumentative should care to either expose their arguments or withdraw their complaints.

Spanish gerundive??

Greetings. I have edited the bit with reference to the Spanish language. There is no gerundive in Spanish; the only verbal adjetive in that language is the (past) participle. The example of the previous version is of course a gerund.

I will also correct the gerund entry, that has a cross reference to this article.

I have the feeling that the reference to a French gerundive may also be incorrect, precisely for the main reasons alluded in the Spanish case, but I can't assure that, so I'll leave it. Pallida  Mors 13:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Esperanto gerundive

Do we really need an invented language here? The artificiality of the language makes this a circular argument, and contributes nothing to the debate other than the promotion of an artefact, you could use Klingon or Quenya with as much (or little) justification. In any case, it's functionally a gerund, whatever the Esperanto world cares to call it.

It's irrelevant for Wikipedia whether it's an invented language. But what is relevant is that, to my understanding, the referenced construction is always called a participle by Esperantists. If it is to be readded, someone should find a citation using that term. Tb (talk) 16:10, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Greek gerundives, and gerundives in other languages generally

I am deleting the reference to the Greek gerundive. I have never seen a Greek grammar that calls the verbal adjective in -teos a gerundive, though I wouldn't be surprised if some did it, just because it serves some of the purposes of the Latin gerundive. The Greek -teos adjectives are adjectives, not participles, and they don't even have the same range of meanings as the Latin gerundive. Basically, Greek has two kinds of verbal adjectives: those in -tos and those in -teos. The ones in -tos work almost exactly like the English suffix -able. The ones in -teos simply have the dual meaning. Instead of meaning that something can be done, they mean that it must be done. But there is no special reference to the future.

More generally, why is a section on gerundives in other languages even necessary? It seems like this section is for constructions that have been called gerundives by people influenced by Latin grammar. In reality, it is neither surprising nor interesting that few other languages have a construction that exactly matches the Latin one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.19.127 (talk) 19:10, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

gerundio in italian and spanish

The form used in Italian and Spanish is known in both languages as 'gerundio' and can be constructed only with the verb 'stare/estar'. It has nothing to do with the gerundive. It signals incomplete activity, in the same way that the Progressive/Continuous form does in English.

The form in Latin known as the 'gerundive' performs two different functions, according to whether it is used attributively or predicatively, for example attributive: cupidus sum librorum legendorum (OR, with the gerund, cupidus sum legendi libros)=I like reading books predicative: hic liber legendus est=this book must be read/this book is to be read. The English Gerundive has two forms: 'is to be' and 'is to': there is a lot to be done/there is a lot to do'.

The 'passive infinitive' is probably a later form of the 'active infinitive', which now seems to be used exclusively in sentences where the subject is 'there '. A sentence such as 'the lawn is to mow' is not possible in English.Pamour (talk) 14:45, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

The paragraph which derives the Italian gerundio (e.g. cantando 'singing') from the gerundive seems to be incorrect. The Italian form is usually derived from the ablative of the gerund (e.g. Martin Maiden A Linguistic History of Italian p. 124). This seems to be confirmed by sentences such as Vidi l'uomo camminando lungo la strade, which means 'I saw the man while I was walking along the road' NOT 'I saw the man walking along the road'. If camminando was adjectival, it could equally refer to the man. Therefore I think it best to delete the paragraph, unless someone produces a better source. Kanjuzi (talk) 08:59, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Future passive participle?

Is the gerundive just the future passive participle? If so, why isn’t this mentioned in the first paragraph? 204.158.177.30 (talk) 15:02, 20 March 2023 (UTC)