Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Stoney Breyer" <stoneyb AT touchwoodcreative.com>]

RF: There is one problem with your examples, because the -ing forms are used
adjectivally. . . The -ing forms used as adjectives are not a part of the
English verbal system. 

SB: This seems to me pretty arbitrary. The same word, same form is an
adjective if it comes before its subject, a verb if it comes after its
subject, even though the positions are interchangeable according to very
straightforward transformation rules? . . .

With (insincere) apologies to Mets fans:
        Wainwright's curve paralyzed Beltran.
        v
        The Cardinals won the LCS on Wainwright's paralyzing curve.
        v
        The winning Cardinals advanced to the World Series.

If you prefer, however:
        Paralyzing Beltran, Wainwright's curve won the LCS for the
Cardinals.
        Winning the LCS, the Cardinals advanced to the World Series.

Deep structure's the same for all of them, though.

RF: In such situations we do not speak of aspect.

SB: Why not? It's there. And having rejected my earlier suggestion that
*tense* should be located in the utterance rather than word, are you now
going to locate *aspect* in the utterance?

Stoney Breyer
Writer