THE CERdNDIAL CONSTRUCTION IN THE ROMANIC LANGUAGES. 
 
 By Samuel Garner. 
 
 /. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 He vvlio enters upon an investigation in 
 philology, where the subject concerns the 
 language of early writers, whose works have 
 been preserved to us in manuscript form, is 
 not infrequently met on the very threshold of 
 his inquiry by a consideration which must in 
 no small degree tend to dampen his ardor—I 
 mean the uncertainty, in the event of his not 
 having access to the manuscripts, of the value 
 of the forms given by the editions he intends 
 to follow, as conijrared with the actual forms 
 which may have been used by the authors 
 themselves. The notorious negligence of the 
 middle-age copyists and their frequent tamper¬ 
 ing with the te.xts of their authors, either to 
 satisfy their own personal whims or through 
 ignorance of the language or dialect of the 
 writers whose j^roductions they essayed to 
 multiply, are too well known to need much 
 comment here. Add to this that even some of 
 the men of the present day who undertake the 
 editing of such manuscripts, are often as 
 capricious and dishonest in making up their 
 editions as the old copyists themselves, and 
 the investigator may well have cause to doubt 
 the value of his conclusions, even when most 
 carefully drawn. Mr. L. Clddat hasjust given 
 us a fine specimen of this cacoethes emendandi 
 in his edition of the Chanson de Roland lately 
 published. (Paris, Gamier, 1886.) Acting on 
 the assumption that “ la majority des roman- 
 istes ” consider the Roland of French origin, 
 which, to say the least, is very cjuestionable, 
 he proceeds to francisize the Oxford text on 
 the model of the French of the eleventh cen¬ 
 tury, from which modern French jrroper is 
 derived. The result is not simply a “nouvelle 
 Edition,” as he styles it, but likewise an “ Edi¬ 
 tion neuve.” But this method of procedure is 
 not confined to this species of writings ; it is a 
 mania that has extended to more recent 
 authors as well. Very few of the ordinary 
 editions of modern classic authors, for in¬ 
 stance, would be trustworthy for philological 
 
 Reprinted from Modern LANr.DAGK Notes, Volume II. 
 No. 3. 
 
 im'estigation. We all know of Bentley’s un¬ 
 happy attempt at emending the text of Milton. 
 Some copyists and editors seem to have a- 
 dopted the principle that any decided deviation 
 in point of spelling or syntax, not current at 
 their time, was an indication that the author 
 did not know what was right and must needs 
 be corrected by his more fortunate successors. 
 In this way many of the most important works 
 of early writers have been lost to us, as far as 
 the original form is concerned, and their value 
 for philological purposes is accordingly di¬ 
 minished in proportion to the amount of mutila¬ 
 tion suffered. As an additional instance of 
 how one of the old F'rench authors has been 
 treated by a modern editor, may be cited the 
 case of the Roman de Ron, edited and pub¬ 
 lished over fifty years ago by Pluquet. 
 
 Wace’s poem is i^reserved in a manuscript 
 known as the Duchesne MS. (because copied 
 by Andrd Duchesne from an earlier MS.), which 
 belongs to the “Biblioth&que Nationale ” at 
 Paris. Pluquet professed to have made this 
 MS. the basis of his edition; but a new edition 
 has been, within the last decade, gotten out by 
 a German savant (Hugo Andresen), who found, 
 by a comparison of Pluquet's text with Du¬ 
 chesne’s, that by no possibility could he 
 have consulted (or at least followed) this MS. 
 for the readings which he attributed to it, 
 since many of these readings are not to 
 be found there, even when he refers specially 
 to Duchesne in his foot notes. A close 
 examination showed that Pluquet had 
 been guilty of the most unparalleled dis¬ 
 honesty ; that instead of basing his edition on 
 Duchesne’s text, he had followed in great 
 measure the worst of the three existing copies, 
 made from the Duchesne; and further that he 
 had even taken the most unwarrantable liber¬ 
 ties with this—changing words, phrases and 
 whole sentences, leaving out and adding lines, 
 just as it suited his fancy, and that too, where 
 there was not the slightest excuse for it ; as 
 neither the sense, the grammar nor the meter 
 offered any difficulty. Observe now the bane¬ 
 ful consequences resulting from this criminal 
 proceeding of Pluquet. 'Phe Roman de Ron, 
 being very characteristic from a linguistic 
 standpoint, has played an important part in 
 
 I 
 
The Gcriiudial Co 7 istriiction in the A’onianic Languages. 
 
 determining man\' points of Old French syntax 
 and morpliology. Perceiving the frequent 
 occurrence in Pluquet’s text of certain forms 
 of the present indicative, third person singular 
 of verbs of the first conjugation (as acorci, inant, 
 kuid and knit), Kaynouard accepted them as 
 the normal forms w hereas the manuscript gives 
 only acorde, niande, cuide. Error once en¬ 
 gendered usually ]rropagates itself w'ith the 
 same persistency as truth ; and so Diez, 
 following in the wake of Raynouard in trust¬ 
 ing to the fidelity of Pluquet, gave, in the 
 first edition of his “ Gi'aniniatik dcr Roman- 
 ischen Sprachen,” viand, pens, os, kuid, as 
 abbreviated forms of the third singular, 
 and he continued faithfully yet innocently 
 to reproduce them in the two subsequently 
 revised editions of his grammar, which 
 he published during his life-time. (See 
 the “ Dritte, neu bearbeitete nnd vermehrte 
 Aufiage ” of 1872, vol. II, p. 232). It may be 
 added that even the 5th edition (1882) con^ 
 tains these forms originally cited by Diez 
 from Raynouard. 
 
 Little inaccuracies of this kind may be of 
 trifling import, as far as the general results 
 of F'rench philological research are concerned, 
 but’they teach a lesson which it behooves 
 every investigator to keep before his mind : 
 namely, that philology is not, as some would 
 have us believe, an exact science ; because its 
 results are largely arrived at through channels 
 subject to all the influences of human weak¬ 
 ness and the ravages of time; and that the 
 apparent facts of to-day may turn out to be 
 errors in the brighter light of the dawn of 
 the morrow. 
 
 The reasoning in the following pages, w'here 
 early works are cited, has been based, in the 
 main, on examples drawn from texts that 
 have passed through the mill of the canons of 
 textual criticism. The correctness, therefore, 
 of certain details and statements depends on 
 the genuineness of the texts consulted, many of 
 which have not always been found as satis¬ 
 factory as could have been desired. 
 
 Quotations from old authors have usually 
 been accompanied by references, where this 
 was convenient. In the case of modern writers, 
 it was not thought necessary to give more than 
 the name, since the correctness of the illustra¬ 
 
 tive examples will be recognized by any one 
 acquainted with the languages from which 
 they have been taken. 
 
 B. means Bartsch, and refers to his Chresto- 
 mathies, unless it is otherwise stated. 
 
 II. 
 
 KOK.MS, THEIR DERIVATION, &C. 
 
 The origin of the various forms of the gerund 
 offers no difficult problem in point of |iho- 
 netics. Most of the languages and their dia¬ 
 lects kept very close to the Latin originals, the 
 Italian (properly so-called) and the Portuguese 
 probably differing less in details than the other 
 members of the group. Only one of the four 
 cases of the Latin gerund, how ever, has sur¬ 
 vived in the Romanic tongues; and this, in 
 view of its earliest syntatical relations, gram¬ 
 marians have siqjposed to be the ablative, 
 although no positive proof can be offered in 
 favor of this ; as, excepting the geniti\ e, any of 
 the other cases would give us the same forms. 
 'I'he fact though of the gerund’s usually ex¬ 
 pressing causal, instrumental, temporal and 
 other adverbial relations, must be a potent 
 argument in fa\ or of its ablati\ e derivation. 
 
 The Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and ^\'al- 
 lachian all retained the terminal wa'of the par¬ 
 ent speech. The first three likewise retained 
 the final o of the Latin, if we accept the abla¬ 
 tive as the original source; whereas the Wal- 
 lachian gerund, through the general tendency 
 of the end-vowels (especially o) to go over into 
 u's appears as ndii. As this ti is always silent 
 in pronunciation, except where the gerund is 
 accompanied by a conjunctive pronoun, which 
 is tacked on to the end and forms one word 
 with it, it is common to drop it at the present 
 day, and we have nd as the ending of all the 
 conjugations. The vocal elements preceding 
 the terminations ndo and ndii are sometimes 
 determined by the Latin vowels, but more fre¬ 
 quently by the vow'el preceding the r of the 
 infiniti\-e in the respecti\e languages, this 
 vowel being occasionally modified in accord¬ 
 ance with certain regular phonetic changes 
 observed under similar conditions. 
 
 Examples; Ital. cantare, cantando; \ endere, 
 vendendo; service, servendo: .Sp. cantar, 
 cantando; vender, vendiendo; partir, partiendc: 
 
 I Port, cantar, cantando; vender, vendiendo; 
 
 2 
 
The Cicrnndial Construction in the Romanic Laitguagcs. 
 
 partir, partindo; p6r, i^ondo: Wal. a caiitfi, 
 cantandu; a tace, tacendii; a alege, alegendil; 
 a audi, audindii. These are tlie usual methods 
 of formation for these four languages; sjrecial 
 or exceptional cases vve need not stop here to 
 can\ass. 
 
 It may he parenthetically noticed in passing, 
 that, like the French, some of the Italian dia¬ 
 lects have taken as a model the first conjuga¬ 
 tion in the formaticm of their gerunds, hut 
 strange to say, and in this they dift'er from the 
 French, as will he seen, they have observed 
 the regular method for their present partici¬ 
 ples. In the “Cronica deli Imperadori,” a 
 X'enetian work of 1301, I have noted these 
 forms : crezando, vezando, volgiando (volendo) 
 ahiaiuhj, sai)iando, siando, condugando, tra- 
 gando, digando, vignando, tegnando, fazando, 
 metando, pcjrtando, avrando (aprendo), moran- 
 do, (only zermendo 28®); but participles: res- 
 plendente, continente, dormiente, reverente, 
 ohediente. 
 
 'I'his same phenomenon is ohservahle in the 
 Genoese dialect, as may he seen from the 
 following forms taken from some “Rime geno- 
 vese della fine del secolo XIII e del principio 
 del XI\’.: fazando, temando, vegnando, digan¬ 
 do, odando, scrivando, discorrando, shatando, 
 respondando, prometando, sentaiulo, hevando, 
 ferando; hut, ohediente, ardente, corrente, 
 spuzente, and even parlente, instead of ])ar- 
 lante. 
 
 These gerunds in ndo and ndh remain in¬ 
 variable for all genders and numhers. Accord¬ 
 ing to Rarcianfl, however,, tlie W'^allachian 
 gerund is susceptible of inllection to indicate 
 gender and number, whenever treated as an 
 adjective. “Wird aher das Mittelwort [gerun- 
 dium] der gegenwiirtigen Zeit als ein Reiwort 
 hetrachtet, claim ist es der Biegung unterwor- 
 fen, wie jedes ideale Beiwort; z. B. gemend’a 
 omenire trehue ajutata—omenirea, ce genre 
 der leidenden Menschheit muss geholfen 
 werden.” It may he cpiestioned whether it is 
 corredt to treat these inflected forms as identi¬ 
 cal with the gerund. 'I'here is no analogy for 
 it in the other Romance languages, for the 
 instances of inflected gerunds in the French 
 were not brought about by a disirosition to in¬ 
 flect this part of sireech, hut through confusion 
 —that is, misuse of the present jrarticiple on 
 
 account of the formal identity of the two. This 
 could not have been the case in the Wal- 
 lachian, as the participle and gerund were too 
 clearly defined. It may be further remarked 
 that the Wallachian presents but very few 
 cases of the apparently inflected gerund, and 
 I would venture the following suggestion as a 
 possible explanation of the phenomenon : 
 namely, that they are not gerunds but the 
 remains of the Latin gerundive (or future 
 jrarticiple in dus), which of course always 
 agreed with the noun-subject in gender, num¬ 
 ber, &c. 
 
 Kiihner is of opinion that the gerundive first 
 had the meaning of a present participle : “liber 
 legendus=ein Buch das gelesen wird, in 
 welcher Bedeutung das Gerundiv wirklich 
 gebraucht wird.” It was not until later, he 
 shows, that the idea of necessity was de\’eloped. 
 
 Regarded from this standpoint they would 
 not be peculiar to the Wallachian. Instances 
 are quite common in Italian : 
 
 E quante in pace hai sparte 
 Opre ammirande. 
 
 (Vincenza da Filicaja) 
 
 Del memorando acquisto 
 A te I'onor si serbe. , 
 
 (I)itto) 
 
 E non ardi il mio genio 
 Sui venerandi avelli. 
 
 ({lofFredi Mameli) 
 Colpo meno esecrando 
 La natia sede invadere. 
 
 (Ales. Paerio). 
 
 These are evidently the Latin participle in 
 dus ; and similar words are to be met with in 
 Spanish and Portuguese; but they are not 
 essentially different from the verbal adjectives 
 in : 
 
 Acum o s&ptffmana doamna N.era trista 
 
 si suferindS. 
 
 (\’asilie Alecsandri) 
 
 Si nu voiescti a-i demite fiamandi. 
 
 (Math. X\', 32). 
 
 The objection may be raised to this explan¬ 
 ation, that it supposes in the Wallachian a 
 change from a passive to an active meaning ; 
 true, but in becoming inflected, it loses its 
 power at once to govern a case, in other words 
 it becomes intransitive. d'his implies the 
 retention of a certain amount of its j^assivity, 
 and would only be analogous to the passive 
 jvarticiple assuming an active meaning, when 
 constructed with the preposition .Yc: usor de 
 
 3 
 
The Gcrundial Construction in the Romanic f.anguages. 
 
 portat, easy to carry; casa aceasta este de 
 vindut, this house is for sale, (to sell, like the 
 Eiig. to let). In German we liave the rex'erse : 
 ein zu verkaufendes haus. 
 
 Moreover, the distinction between gerund 
 and gerundive, active and passive, has not 
 been settled beyond a peradventure; for while 
 in the general outlines of their functions they 
 may be pronounced, the one active and the 
 other passive ; still individual instances arise, ! 
 which point to a latent consciousness, as it 
 were, of the identity of these two parts of 
 speech. Kriiger, though maintaining the 
 activity of the gerund, concedes that it may 
 sometimes be passive in force (so finden sich 
 auch die Gerundia in einer solchen [passiven] 
 Bedentung gebraucht), and cites, among other 
 examples: “spes restituendi nulla erat ” and 
 “memoriaexcolendoaugetur.” This is.signifi¬ 
 cant as showing the possible identity of 
 gerund and participle in dus\ and efforts have 
 been made to prove tliis, but not with com¬ 
 plete success. The most that can be said is, 
 that they both, at times, desert their proper 
 provinces. A \ ery decided case of this is seen 
 in Aeneid IX. 7; 
 
 Turne, quod optanti divfim permittere nemcr 
 Auderet, volvenda dies en attulit ultrb. 
 
 Wax^votvcnda has the force of votvens and is 
 analogous to the Wallachian usage. 
 
 riiere is found likewise in Plautus a con¬ 
 struction, imitated by \'arro (who affected 
 an archaic style) and Lucretius, in which the 
 neuter of the participle in dus is used actively, 
 at least what amounts to the same, although 
 the grammarians would account for it other¬ 
 wise. 
 
 Mihi hac nocte agitandum est vigilias. 
 
 (Plautus, Trill. I\'. 2.27) 
 
 Hos veteranos [boves] ex campestribus locis 
 non emendum in dura ac montana. 
 
 (\'arro, K. R. I. 20). 
 
 Nunc ratio nulla est resiandi, nulla facultas, 
 
 Aeternas quoniam poenas in inorie timendumst. 
 
 {Lucretius, De Rer. Nat. I, no). 
 
 W'e shall, too, see furtlier on, that, in Merov¬ 
 ingian Latin, the particijile in dus was used 
 actively and made to govern the same case as 
 its verb. 
 
 This may not prove my thesis with reference 
 to the Wbdlachian gerund adjectively em¬ 
 
 ployed, but it is strongly suggestive. It cer¬ 
 tainly is not easy to see, how a word, which 
 expressed only adverbial relations and which, 
 moreover, was virtually a noun in an oblique 
 case, could liave acquired an adjective use. In 
 fact Diez, although ciuoting with approval from 
 the jiassage of Barciantt above given, says 
 somewhat inconsistently : “ Diese Casusform 
 [Al.'lativ] erweiterte allmahlich ihren Bereich 
 auf Kosten des Part, praes. aber nur des 
 verbalen : die adjective Bedentung kommt ihr 
 niclit zu, vielmelir lehnt sie sich wie der In- 
 finitiv an ein \'erbum oder aucli apiiositicinell 
 an ein Substantiv. Man sagt z. B. it. un fan- 
 ciullo giuocante (die giuoca) aber un fanciullo 
 si divertiva giuocando ; altsp. una virgen dur- 
 miente, aberTuiste virgen durmiendot! velando 
 (im schlafen und wachen) Flor. 1. 6; fr. une 
 femme mourante, aber une femme parla en 
 mourant.” 
 
 This is a distinction wliich it behooves us to 
 keep constantly before our minds, when sjieak- 
 ing of the gerund. 'Phe real gerund is not an 
 adjective modifier and conseciuently never 
 changes its form. Wlien in Purgatorio IX. 38, 
 we read : trafugo lui dormendo in le sue brac- 
 cia, dormendo does not actually (though logic¬ 
 ally it does) agree with tui; it is to be inter¬ 
 preted : in sonno or 7 icl atto di dormire. Other 
 cases may be analysed in the same way. As 
 in the Cid : Rodrigo Diaz de \'ivar. Despues 
 que gan6 fi Valencia Como bueno guerreando, 
 \hvia 'a placer en ella, where we may translate: 
 as a good warrior, while it is grammatically: 
 as one good in warring. 
 
 The present participles, where they exist in 
 Italian, S]ianish, Portuguese and W'allacliian, 
 all end in nte, the antecedent vowel generally 
 depending on the same conditions as for the 
 gerund. It is only the Italian, though, that is 
 capable of creating ]iarticiples for all its verbs. 
 The S[)anish, Portuguese and Wallachian have, 
 for the most part, lost them. 'Phose that are 
 left are used only as nouns, adjectives or 
 prepositions. In no case do they perform anv 
 of the functions of the verb. In the early 
 .Spanish and Portuguese writers a few siioradic 
 cases are found of participles retaining their 
 verbal force ; but they are not sufiiciently 
 numerous to establish any princi|)Ie, and they 
 are hardly to be regarded as belonging to the 
 
 4 
 
The Ger-undial Constr 7 iction m the Romanic Languages. 
 
 syntax of these languages. Lusiads V. 22 is 
 an undoubted Latinism. 
 
 E pelo c^o chovendo em fim voou, 
 
 Porque co’ a agua a jacente agua molhe. 
 
 Tasso shows a great fondness for these 
 Latinisms; and of writers of a recent day I 
 believe it may be 'said that Silvio Pellico uses 
 the present participle oftener with a verbal 
 force than is customary in modern Italian. 
 Like the Latin these participles have but one 
 form for both masculine and feminine, the 
 only inflexional change being to indicate num¬ 
 ber. 
 
 We have now to speak of the Provencal and 
 French, which have been reserved for the last, 
 because they belong to a special category, in 
 that they have departed more widely from the 
 parent speech than the others in their formal 
 development, and hence have to be grouped 
 by themselves. The Langue d’Oc preserved 
 both the participle and the gerund of the Latin 
 and, according to Diez’s table of inflexions, 
 the regular forms are; gerund and en; 
 participle an-s and en-s ; that is, the one being 
 distinguished from the other only by the 5. 
 This distinction, however, was not always 
 heeded. In fact, two of the old Proven5al 
 grammars, the “ Donatz Proensals,” and the 
 “ Razos de Trobar” of Raimon Mdal, make 
 no such division in denominating the parts of 
 the verb. The former, in speaking of the case- 
 endings of nouns and adjectives, says : “Si cum 
 sun li particip que finissen in ans uel e^is, queu 
 pos dire ‘ aquest chaual es presans, aquesta 
 domna es presans, aquestz canals es avinens, 
 aquesta domnaes avinens.’ Mas el nominatiu 
 plural se camia daitan que conven a dire ‘aquelh 
 chaual sun avinen, aquelas donas sun avinens’.” 
 In two or three other places, reference is made 
 to the participle but there is no mention, 
 throughout the whole treatise, of the gerund. 
 Mdal likewise observes complete silence in 
 respect to the distinction between gerund and 
 participle, and we may infer that the former 
 was regarded merely as the participle minus 
 the s. The early Provengal writers were evi¬ 
 dently not aware of any difference of origin ; 
 and there was no reason why they should have 
 been, since the oldest documents present no 
 forms with clearer outlines than those of a 
 more recent date. 
 
 Like the Italian dialects above illustrated, 
 the French modeled all its gerunds on the first 
 conjugation, but went even further than these 
 dialects and treated the present participle in 
 the same manner.* Burguy, who, with all his 
 short-comings, must be admitted to have 
 been a scholar, assigns, as it seems to me, a 
 strange reason for this. He says in this con¬ 
 nection : 
 
 Le participe pr&ent des quatre conjugaisons 
 a toujours eu la flexion ant\ on rejeta sans 
 doute en (-ens) pour distinguer orthographi- 
 quement le participe de la troisi^me pers. pi. 
 prds. ind. et parce que la prononciation de Ve 
 devant n est la meme que celle de I’rt.” This 
 is making a statement in face of the fact that 
 no such change of ^ to a was thought necessary, 
 under like conditions, in Provencal. Moreover, 
 it is not true, as is implied in the latter part of 
 of his sentence, that the participle and the third 
 person pi. of the verb w'ere pronounced alike. 
 It is true that en{t) and an(t) assonate and 
 rime with each other ; 
 
 Femmes lui van detras seguen 
 Ploran lo van et gaimentan. 
 
 (La Passion, B. ii. i6j. 
 
 Tel conseiller ne fut onques vivant 
 Ne plus sages homme i mon escient. 
 
 (Roman d’Aquin, 1 . 1612). 
 
 But in the case of the participle and the verb, 
 there was one thing which completely distin- 
 
 *We must go to the oblique cases for all the forms of the 
 participle—even for the sibilant forms arts, anz. Latin 
 annuls would have given, not ainans, antanz, but atiies, as 
 infans gave enfeSj while infantem produced enfant. So tak¬ 
 ing the accusative amantem as the norm, we should obtain 
 analogously amant (later but incorrectly When the 
 
 flexional sibilant {s, z) was added, the dental dropped out. 
 Ainando {-uni) appears in French only as amant (ainiant); 
 there was probably, however, an intermediate form, amand, 
 the sonant then going over into its corresponding surd at a 
 time when the final consonants were still sounded, (quando= 
 quand is nearly always quant in O. F.). This process of eu¬ 
 phony (i, e. ease of utterance according to the present defini¬ 
 tion), similar to the German, was the universal custom in 
 early French and Provencal, and hence: b=p; g=c; d=t; v=f, 
 (preserved in modern: grand homme, sang et eau, etc., 
 which are pronounced : grant homme, sank et eau). These 
 changes, as a general rule, took place, whether the sonants 
 became final through the natural growth of the words out of 
 the Latin or through inflexion. Only in the Passion and a 
 few other poems do we observe a strong opposite dialectic 
 tendency in respect to the final t’s\ leved, anned, aproismed 
 conforted, defended, acusand. 
 
 0 
 
The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 guished the two forms to the ear, namely the 
 tonic accent, w'hich must have influenced the 
 quality of the final vowels, that is, in fimssent 
 (verb) the last vowel would be either not heard 
 at all or very obscurely, while in _finisshit{em), 
 the e would be a full sonorous sound. 
 
 If I may venture a suggestion myself, I would 
 attribute the phenomenon to dialectic influence 
 as seen in the Roman d’Aquin (trante, talant, 
 plants, antrer, prandre, tandre, sanglant) and 
 elsewhere, where the e of the syllable ens, en, 
 ente, ent, has become a ; as laians (laiens) pre- 
 sant, oriant, chasemant, povremant, and the 
 numerals in a«/^(quarante, cinquante, soixante, 
 septante, octante, nonante) which must have 
 passed through ente in becoming ante. What¬ 
 ever may have been the cause of this change, 
 the fact remains indisputable : all gerunds and 
 present participles had the same terminations 
 (ant, ans, ant) and there are no traces of ent- 
 forms even in the earliest monuments of the 
 language; for, what Wilhelm Bruno says in a 
 dissertation which he presented to the Univer¬ 
 sity of Rostock, in 1871, has no bearing on the 
 question whatever. After stating that the 
 French “ adjectif verbal ” comes undoubtedly 
 from the coijresponding Latin forms in ans and 
 ens, he continues : “ Die Endung e 7 it ist von 
 vornherein fast aufgegeben” and then gives do- 
 lent, prisent, omnipote?it, as though they were 
 genuine French particii^les, or verbal adjec¬ 
 tives. The absurdity of this procedure is patent 
 on the very face of it. In the case of the last 
 two, there were no verbs on which to form 
 them ; while doler gave dolant as its participle. 
 He has made the mistake of confounding 
 w'ords taken directly from the Latin with the 
 cognate forms founded on French models. It 
 seems to me it would be as reasonable to call 
 dolent, omnipotent, obedient particijjles in 
 English. 
 
 Quite a number of these Latin participles 
 came into French at an early date, and a few 
 have been added from time to time (the six¬ 
 teenth century was especially prolific in their 
 introduction), but they have preserved in the 
 majority of cases their distinctive Latin char¬ 
 acteristics as far as form is concerned, while 
 the French participles have all along coexisted 
 side by side with them. The following partial 
 list will make |)lain my meaning; 
 
 FRENCH. LATIN. 
 
 fatiguanc. 
 
 fatigant. 
 
 vaquant. 
 
 vacant. 
 
 excellant. 
 
 excellent. 
 
 intriguant. 
 
 intrigant. 
 
 pr^sidant. 
 
 president. 
 
 residant. 
 
 resident. 
 
 affluant. 
 
 affluent. 
 
 differant. 
 
 different. 
 
 ^quivalant. 
 
 Equivalent 
 
 influant. 
 
 influent. 
 
 n^gligeant. 
 
 negligent. 
 
 Having discussed the etymological phases, 
 something should now be said about the ap¬ 
 parently interminable dispute in which French 
 grammarians have indulged regarding the 
 terminology to be employed in speaking of 
 the several syntactical functions discharged by 
 these verbal forms in ant. 
 
 The most common designation found in the 
 grammars is present participle; but this ap¬ 
 pellation seeming too general to express all 
 the offices performed by these words, gram¬ 
 marians began quite early to employ other 
 names, such as, adjectif verbal, gerondif, &c.; 
 but unfortunately they have not united on any 
 term, or set of terms, to be used. The 
 Academy thinks girondif a misnomer as ap¬ 
 plied to French syntax. “Gerondif,” it says, 
 se dit abusivement, dans notre langue, du 
 participe actif, pr^cdd^ de la proposition e 7 i, 
 exprimOe ou sousentendue.” Girault-Duvi- 
 vier and Bescherelle distinguish between ad¬ 
 jectif verbal, participe prise^it and glrotidif, 
 according to their respective syntactical rela¬ 
 tions ; while Diez (Grammatik III. pp. 256- 
 262) terms the inflected form participuan, the 
 uninflected, gerundium. Matzner, on the other 
 hand, differs a little from all these in his 
 nomenclature: “SeineForm,” he says, “worin 
 sich die lateinischen Formen auf ans, ens und 
 andinn, endum verschmolzen finden, erscheint 
 im Satze theils unveranderlich als gerundiv- 
 isches participium, theils als reines Verbal- 
 adjectif, welches fahig ist eine Feminin- und 
 Plural-form anzunehmen.” 
 
 This diversity of terminology is not of recent 
 date; it began with the first grammarians and 
 sprang out of the frequent confounding of the 
 two parts of speech by the early wTiters, ow¬ 
 ing to the similarity of form and signification. 
 Instance the following, where, after verbs of 
 
 6 
 
The Geruiidial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 motion, the verbal ought to appear unchanged, 
 as in the first example : 
 
 Autresi m’en irai, ce crei. 
 
 Cum jeo ving, tut murant de sei. 
 
 (Marie de France, B. 238. 8). 
 
 Au terme vient joians et li^s. 
 
 (Flore et Blanceflor). 
 
 E ele descirad sa gunele et jetad puldre sur 
 son chief.si s’en alad criante e plurante. 
 
 (Livre des Rois). 
 
 The same cause brought about a like con¬ 
 fusion in Proven5al: 
 
 Als faitz conoicheras las gens, 
 
 Que las paraulas van mentens. 
 
 (Le Libre de Seneqiia). 
 
 E la metia enans a son poder ab sas cansors 
 e en comtans. 
 
 (Bib. derTroub. XLII). 
 
 Antoine Oudin, tutor in Italian of Louis XIV, 
 observing the divergence of opinion among 
 French grammarians relative to the variability 
 or non-variability of the verbals in ant, pro¬ 
 posed in the first edition of his grammar,which 
 appeared in 1632, to treat them as “gerondifs,’ 
 whenever they retained their full verbal force. 
 In this case they should remain uninflected. 
 This he sets forth in these words: 
 
 Ce participe, exprimant le gerondif, ne se 
 doit point obliger a suivre ny le genre ny le 
 nombre du substantif antecedant: verbi gratia: 
 la terre produisant des fruits, et non pas la 
 terre produisante, etc.; les roys asseurent leurs 
 estats, traitt.ant doucement leurs subjects, et 
 non pas : traittans doucement, etc.; les femmes 
 se fardant gastent leurs visages et jamais se 
 fardans, etc. Mais s’il est pur participe relatif 
 (c’est-a-dire adjectif verbal) ilfautqu’il suive le 
 genre et le nombre dudit antecedant, comme 
 les roys cherissants, les subjects obeyssans, 
 les femmes attrayantes; car alors il prend la 
 nature d’adjectif..Je trouve une excep¬ 
 
 tion aux temps compos^z du participe estant, 
 car on dit: ces hommes estans entrez, mais ce 
 n’est que pour le masculin, car on ne diroit 
 pas ; ces femmes estans entries.” 
 
 It is curious to observe how Vaugelas, whose 
 “Remarques sur la langue fran^oise ” came 
 out fifteen years after the publication of Oudin’s 
 grammar, attempts to compound with the 
 matter. After stating that it would be “bar- 
 
 bare et ridicule” to say: je les ai trouvdes 
 ayantes le verre a la main and that ayans le 
 verre a la main would not be more correct, he 
 adds : il faut done necessairement avoir recours 
 au gerondif quand il s’agit du feminin, soit au 
 singulier, soit au pluriel, et dire en I’exemple 
 que nous avons propose: je les ai trouvdes 
 ayant le verre it la main.” And again : “ Don- 
 nons un exemple des participes actifs aux au- 
 tres verbes: je les ai trouv^es beuvantes et 
 mangeantes. Qui a jamais oiiy parler comme 
 cela ? 11 faut dire : je les ai trouvdes beuvant et 
 
 mangeant, au gerondif.Il y en a pour- 
 
 tant qui soustiennent que ce participe actif 
 feminin ne doit pas estre banny de nostre lan¬ 
 gue, quoy que neanmoins ils demeurent d’ac¬ 
 cord que I’usage en est tres-rare et que le ge¬ 
 rondif mis en sa place sera meilleur sans com- 
 paraison.” He seems, however, not to have 
 had a clear conscience after having delivered 
 himself of these words, for he adds further : au 
 moins, il est bien certain c\\\'estant participe 
 n’a pas de feminin et que jamais on n’a dit 
 estante non plus qu’ ayante, au feminin. 
 
 In 1660, the Port-Royalist grammarians, 
 Arnauld and Lancelot, following the example 
 of Oudin and Vaugelas, declared that the 
 present participle was never anything else 
 but a “gerondif;” that it was consequently 
 not susceptible of either gender or number 
 and ought not to be declined. “Je dis ejue 
 nos deux participes aimant et aimd, en tant 
 qu’ils ont le m^me rdgime que le verbe, 
 sont plutdt des gdrondifs que des participes ; 
 car M. Vaugelas a d^ja remarqud que le 
 participe en ant, lorsqu’ il a le rdgime du 
 verbe, n’a point de fdminin et qu’on ne dit 
 point par exemple: ‘j’ai vu une femme lis- 
 ante I’Ecriture, mais lisant I’Ecriture.’ One 
 si on le met quelquesfois au pluriel: ‘j’ai vu 
 des hommes lisants I’Ecriture,’ je crois que 
 cela est venu d’une faute dont on ne s’est pas 
 apergu, a cause que le son de lisant et de li¬ 
 sants est presque toujours le m^me, le tm le ^ 
 ne se pronongant point d’ordinaire.” 
 
 This principle first enunciated by Oudin was 
 founded in reason and was theoretically cor¬ 
 rect ; and had he gone back to the earliest 
 writers, he would have found it pretty well 
 substantiated and obtained better results than 
 he did, as far as the history of the language 
 
The Gerimdial Construction hi the Romanic Languages. 
 
 was concerned. As it was, his statement was 
 not justified by the facts as he found them at 
 his time ; and there is little doubt but that he 
 was led to make it by the beautiful system of 
 the Italian gerund and participle, whose clear¬ 
 ness is such that it would not unlikely have in¬ 
 duced him to wish to see it substituted for the 
 chaotic condition of the analogous construc¬ 
 tion in his mother-tongue. But as has been 
 said, the usage of his time only partially legi¬ 
 timated the principle he claimed to be estab¬ 
 lished. For from the beginning of the four¬ 
 teenth century the feminine e and fle.xional s 
 began to invade the province of the gerund.f 
 
 En la splendur de la tue fuildrante hanste. 
 
 (Habakkuk, III. ti. (XI. century) 
 
 E com pesante destinee. 
 
 (Kenoit de Sainte More. XII. century) 
 La chiere blanche plus que n'est flour de lis 
 Et revelante comme rose de pris. 
 
 (Roman d’Aquin, 1 . 310. XII. century.) 
 L’espee a ^ainte tranchante a son coste. 
 
 (Ditto 1 . 1202.) 
 
 Parmi le cors li vait bruiante, 
 
 De I’autre part fiert en la lande.J 
 
 (Gormuud et Isembard, 1 . 75, XIII. cent.) 
 
 The confusion having been once made, it 
 went on increasing until 1679, when the Acade¬ 
 my issued its famous decree: “La regie est 
 faite, on ne d^clinera pas les participes actifs.” 
 
 The reason which the members of that 
 august body assigned for this decision, was that 
 they were but following the example “ de nos 
 anciens, pour lesquels nous devoirs avoir beau- 
 coup de consideration; car ils ont toujours 
 pose pour regie certaine que les verbes actifs 
 n’ont pas de vrais participes mais seulement 
 des gerondifs, qui tiennent lieu de participes, 
 gardant le regime de leurs verbes et se joi- 
 gnant avec les noms masculins et feminins 
 singuliers et pluriels, sans etre dedinables et 
 sans etre d’aucun genre, par exemirle; riromme 
 craignant Dieu; les honrmes craignant Dieu ; 
 la femme craignant Dieu ; les femnres craign¬ 
 ant Dieu.” 
 
 This seems a little like inspiration, unless 
 
 t Sporadic instances of the feminine e with the participle 
 made their appearance in the preceding centuries. 
 
 I In this last example the e has also been added to the gerund, 
 similarly to a case already noticed. The addition of this 
 feminine e must have acted as a potent cause in helping to 
 confound the two parts of speech, already no longer distin¬ 
 guishable by their form. 
 
 we are to take the words nos anciens and tou¬ 
 jours as very limited in meaning and applica¬ 
 tion ; for we have no reasons to believe that 
 they had any very definite knowledge of Old 
 French syntax. But what they did, although 
 often contravened by practice, was in the main 
 right; for they had the analogy of all the other 
 Romance languages on their side. When we 
 find the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Wal- 
 lachian using the gerund in certain construc¬ 
 tions such as: 
 
 E in umil seggio, e in un vestire schietto 
 Fra’ suoi duel sedendo il ritrovaro. 
 
 (Tasso, Gerus. Lib. IL 6o). 
 
 Llegd il cuadrillero, y como los halld ha- 
 blando en tan sosegada conversacio quedd 
 suspense. 
 
 (Don Quijote, Part I. ch. XVII). 
 
 E tornando, achou-os outra vez dormindo. 
 
 (Marco, XIV. 40). 
 
 Si a venitii, si i-S gasith dormindtt. 
 
 (March, XIV. 37); 
 
 that is, with the verb to find, there seems to be 
 no plausible ground for regarding the French 
 and Provencal construction as of different 
 origin. Compare with the above the following : 
 
 Sor une grant coute vermoille 
 Troverent la dame seant. 
 
 (Chevalier au Lyon, B. i6o. i8). 
 
 E qand venc un dia, Raimons del Castel 
 Rosillon trobet passan Guillem de Cabestaing. 
 
 (Bib. der Troub. IX). 
 
 As far as possible an effort will be made in 
 the following pages to treat the subject from 
 this standpoint—namely to show by citations 
 from the co-related languages what construc¬ 
 tions ought to be considered gerundial, when 
 speaking of French and Provencal. 
 
 This method of treatment has not been, as 
 far as I know, proposed and no doubt will be 
 objected to by some, especially by those who 
 are not willing to admit the term “gerund” in 
 P'rench grammar, but who maintain that, in¬ 
 flected or uninllected, the verbal form ant is 
 nothing but a participle. Little will be gained 
 by it, I admit, as we can not now make the 
 language over; but the distinction between 
 gerund and jiarticiple once accepted, we see 
 why the early authors considered themselves 
 at liberty to add the s (z) or not. As has been 
 said, they were probably not aware that the 
 words in ant issued from more than one source 
 
 8 
 
The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 —nay, possibly did not think of the subject at 
 all, but they knew that custom had sanctioned 
 both the use and the omission of the sibilant. 
 
 I find little relevancy in wliat has been so 
 much insisted on with reference to the exigen¬ 
 cies of the rime causing the violation of the 
 rule ; for while it is true that the so-called rule 
 for the participle is frequently violated in the 
 rimes, we can not lay much stress on this fact, 
 as the non-sibilated forms are met too often 
 out of rime and in prose, to be regarded as 
 mere orthographical blunders. Moreover, it 
 is not uncommon to find the sibilant in the 
 rimes where it is not called for and vice versa. 
 And again, the argument would only hold 
 good, in any case, for pure rime ; because the 
 assonances did not depend on the consonants, 
 but on the vowel-element of the final strong 
 syllable. Take the following passage from 
 Guillaume d’Orange, a clear specimen of rime : 
 
 Li cuens Guillaumes fu iriez et dolanz, 
 
 Vivien vil qui gisoit to sanglanz, 
 
 Plus soef flere que basme ne pimens. 
 
 Sor sa poitrine tenoit ses mains croisant; 
 
 Li sans li ist par ambedeus les flans. 
 
 Par mi le cors ot quinze plaies granz, 
 
 De la menor fust mort uns amiranz. 
 
 *Ni^s Vivien/ dit Guillaume li frans, 
 
 'Mar fu VO cors qui tant par iert vaillant. 
 
 And another from the Chanson de Roland, 
 an assonated poem : 
 
 De mun osberc en sunt remput li pan; 
 
 Plaies ai tantes es costez e es flancs 
 De tutes parz en salt fors li clers sancs; 
 
 Trestut le cors m’en vait afiebliant: 
 
 Sempres murrai, par le mien esciant. 
 
 Je suis vostre hum e vus tien ^ guarant; 
 
 Ne me blasmez, se je m'en vai fuiant. 
 
 Innumerable instances might be cited out of 
 rime and in prose ; a few only are given ; 
 
 II est issus del bos, vint el lairis, 
 
 Galopant vait vers aus tou le cemin. 
 
 (Aiol et Mirabel). 
 
 Done vint edrant dreitement ^ la mer. 
 
 Eist de la neif e vait edrant k Rome. 
 
 (St. Alexis). 
 
 Le cheval brochet, si vient poignant vers lui. 
 
 (Ch. dc Roland). 
 
 Si home ocit alter e il seit cunuissant, &c. 
 
 (Lois de Guillaume le Conq.). 
 
 La voz del segnur frainanz les cedres— 
 
 La voiz del segnur entretren^ant la flamme. 
 
 (Psalm XXIX.). 
 
 Trestot a pi<^, defendant son parti. 
 
 (Garin le Loherain), 
 
 Plorant li bese le piz et la forcele. 
 
 (Guil. d’Orange). 
 
 Je vois querant tun pru, t’honur. 
 
 (Myst^re d’Adam). 
 
 Mult par lu vait criant merci. 
 
 (Tristan). 
 
 Qui tostens va sivant amor. 
 
 (Benoit de Sainte More). 
 
 Quant je ving ^a corrant a toi. 
 
 (Ditto). 
 
 Parlant les a issi menez au cors. 
 
 (Romania VIIL 177). 
 
 Dolanz m’en part. 
 
 (Romances, thirteenth century). 
 
 Vers Castres s’en repairet joians et esbaudis. 
 
 (Le Siege de Castres (Rom. Stud. I. 591). 
 
 Et en tel estat fesoient le silence attendans 
 le jourciui vint tantost. 
 
 (Jehan Froissart). 
 
 C’est une cit^ de la marine qui siet en la 
 terre de Fenice et est obeissant ^ la citd de 
 Sur. 
 
 (Tr. de Guil. de Tyr.). 
 
 .... un povres hons .... fuioit mont criant 
 devans un ors. (Ditto). 
 
 Je servirai desirans toute voie. 
 
 (Guiot de Provins). 
 
 E la metia enans a son poder ab sas cansos 
 e en comtans. (Bib. der Troub.). 
 
 Non pose mudar, bels amics, qu’en chan- 
 tanz, &c. (Ugo Catola). 
 
 The above quotations, which might be in¬ 
 creased to any number, will suffice to show 
 that verbals in a^it might remain unchanged 
 or take the sibilated forms ans, anz. I do not 
 believe this is attributable to a mere whim or 
 accident. There must have been a reason 
 for it. 
 
 For the sake of convenience the same termin¬ 
 ology, as that of Diez, had been determined 
 upon, even before consulting him on the sub¬ 
 ject; and the writer was glad to have his 
 resolution sanctioned by such • an authority. 
 But before proceeding to the syntax, another 
 point must be mentioned, which comes prop¬ 
 erly under this heading ; that is, the compound 
 forms of the gerund. 
 
 Having created this special construction 
 from the simple gerund (for it differs in so 
 many ways from the Latin, that it may almost 
 
 9 
 
The Gertindial Constructio 7 i in the Romaiiic Languages. 
 
 be said to be a new creation), the Romanic 
 languages went further and constructed a past 
 tense as well as a passive voice, by means of 
 the auxiliary verbs habere and essere: Fr. 
 ayant ahni, eta^it aiini, ayant H& aittii; It. 
 avendo a^nato, essetido amato, essendo stato 
 amato; Sp. habiendo amado, sie^ido amado, 
 habiendo sido a^nado; Port, tendo [havetido) 
 amado, seiido amado, te?ido sido amado. 
 
 In this way they remedied what we feel to 
 be a weakness in the parent speech, which 
 had no perfect active participle, and not having, 
 strictly speaking, any auxiliary verbs, was 
 obliged to make the passive participle serve 
 for both present and past. The Roman could 
 not literally say: Caesar having crossed the 
 bridge attacked the enemy, but: Caesar, the 
 bridge crossed, attacked enemy. French, 
 C^sar ayant pass6 le pont attaqua I’ennemi, 
 or retaining the Latin construction: Cfear, le 
 pont pass 4 , attaqua I’ennemi, or even; C&ar 
 passant le pont attaqua I’ennemi; It. Cesare 
 avendo passato il ponte attaccb I’inimico, or : 
 Cesare, passato il ponte, attacco, &c., or: 
 Cesare passando il ponte attaccb I’inimico. 
 And so in the other languages, the Wallachian 
 excepted, which seems to make the simple 
 forms serve for all moods and tenses. I say 
 this with some hesitancy, basing my belief 
 on the silence of Diez, Barcianti, Mircesco and 
 others and on my own observation, which, it 
 is true, is not very great in Wallachian litera¬ 
 ture. A number of parallel passages in the 
 Bible show that, where the most of the other 
 languages use the compound tense or some 
 other equivalent, the Wallachian renders the 
 same by the simple gerund. At any rate my 
 experience is sufficiently extensive to justify 
 me in asserting that the compound, if it occurs 
 at all, is very exceptional. 
 
 We now come to the Syntax, which will be 
 treated under two rubrics: ist. The Gerund 
 without a bt^eposition, and 2d, The Gerund 
 with a preposition. 
 
 The Gerund without a Preposition. 
 
 The most striking peculiarity of the gerun- 
 dial construction in the early languages, es¬ 
 pecially those of France, is its infrequency as 
 compared with modern usage. It is more 
 common in verse than in prose, and this is ex¬ 
 
 plained by the fact, that when a writer starts a 
 “leash” (laisse) whose assonance or rime 
 requires ant, e 7 it, (atts, etis) terminations, he is 
 often driven to seek the construction and the 
 use of words which will give him his rime or 
 assonance. Could we call up the shades of 
 the old poets and question them on the 
 subject of verse-making, many of them would 
 have to make the same confession in this 
 respect as Baltasar del Alcazar makes of the 
 consonants : 
 
 Porque si in verso refiero 
 Mis cosas mas importantes, 
 Me fuerzan los consonantes 
 A decir lo que no quiero. 
 
 The freer use of the infinitive during the first 
 stages of the growth of these languages doubt¬ 
 less exerted a great influence in preventing 
 the rapid development of the gerundial con¬ 
 struction, which at the present time has as¬ 
 sumed such extensive proportions owing to 
 the general discarding of the infinitive as a 
 kind of verbal noun. 
 
 The following French and Provencal ex¬ 
 amples, selected as being the most note¬ 
 worthy in this regard, will make plain the 
 difference as compared with modern usage. 
 
 Et le fist mult bien k Tenz metre (modern : en 
 les repoussant) si que grant pris Ten dona 
 Ton. 
 
 Ville-Hardouin. 
 
 Si unt le clerc truvt? par querre e demander 
 Prechant e batizant, ke (^o fu sun mester. 
 
 Math. Paris, Vie de S. Auban, 1291. 
 Mais hardis doit estre en servir. 
 
 Jehan de Cond^, B. 396,3. 
 Il faisait tel noise au venir (mod. en venant) 
 que il sembloit que ce fust la foudre dou ciel. 
 Joinville, Hist, de S. Louis, ch. XLIII. 
 Et y mist Pon au paiement faire le samedi. 
 
 Ditto, LXXV. 
 
 Car il avait paour que il ne brisast le col au 
 tourner. 
 
 Ditto, Cl. 
 
 Je li demandai comment ce estait que il ne 
 metoit consoil en li garantir ne par noer. 
 
 Ditto, CXXIX, 
 
 E la amava e deleitava se en parlar de lieis. 
 
 Bib. dcr Troub. XXXV. 
 
 L’un an els fundemens lur cura, 
 
 Li autre en bastir la mura 
 El altre en far lo mortier. 
 
 Life of St. Enimia. 
 
 Aisi se van ferir (might be : feren) cum cascas 
 venc. 
 
 10 
 
The Gerimdial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 No lor valo escut par un besenc. 
 
 G. de Rossilho, 2180. 
 Car ab cor franc tan m’afranc en amar. 
 
 Anonym. Ballad. 
 
 Contrast the two following examples, in 
 which infinitive and gerund are equivalents : 
 
 Per la vila s’en van cridan. 
 
 Die Kindheit Jesu 
 (B's Denkm' ler, XXXIX). 
 
 E totz los juzieus van cridar. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 That the language has lost much in force 
 and ease of expression by abandoning this 
 free use of the infinitives for other construc¬ 
 tions can not be questioned; as the substitutes, 
 which have been mostly supplied by the ger¬ 
 und, are not as flexible for purposes of 
 thought. One can not but feel this to be one 
 of the lost beauties of the language ; and the 
 loss becomes more apparent, when we turn to 
 the Italian, Spanish etc., in which thegerund- 
 ial and infinitive constructions have grown 
 side by side with each other and give to these 
 languages a variety of expression unattainable 
 in French. The Italian : lo scender questa 
 roccia; al passar questa valle; gli costa caro 
 questo diffamare altrui: Spanish ; un secreto 
 desearos; el huir la ocasion; el comunicar 
 los males; cair fu6 mal castigado en non 
 temer a Dios ; Prov.: al camp levar, etc., had 
 their analogy in : au doner le don, au passer 
 la porte, a un tertre monter, au prendre le 
 cong 4 , en cel tirer—expressions which even 
 Montaigne could imitate (il se penoient du 
 tenir le chastel, and : le paistre I’erbe est 
 salutaire au jeune cheval), but which have 
 now totally disappeared from the language. 
 
 One of the earliest and very common con¬ 
 structions of the gerund is effected by its con¬ 
 junction with the verb alter. When so used, 
 alter may perform the part of a simple aux¬ 
 iliary or copula and either expresses progres¬ 
 sive or iterative action, or these ideas may be 
 altogether absent and the action of the princi¬ 
 pal verb does not seem to be appreciably 
 modified by the addition of alter. In other 
 cases alter retains in part or wholly its 
 motional signification and as so used may be 
 replaced by almost any verb expressing 
 motion. These two categories are not always 
 clearly defined, certain cases being susceptible 
 
 of either interpretation. As instances of alter 
 as copula only and in which the fundamental 
 meaning is completely subordinated to the 
 principal verb, may be cited ; 
 
 1. E tei tuz jurs apele, “ K’alez vu.sdemandant.” 
 
 Vie de Seint Auban, 818. 
 
 2. As eschies e as tables se vunt esbaneiant. 
 
 Voyage de Charlemagne, 270. 
 
 3. Seignurs baruns, n’en alez mespensant. 
 
 Pur Deu vus pri que ne seiez fuiant. 
 
 Ch. de Roland, 1472. 
 
 4. Kar chevalchiez. Pur qu’alez arestant ? 
 
 Ditto, 1783. 
 
 5. De grant dolour se va ly ber pasmant. 
 
 Roman d'Aquin, 1601. 
 
 6. Pour Pamour Ddnels alez espargnant. 
 
 Ditto, 1633. 
 
 7. Voire moult plus, ce trovon nous lesant 
 Dedans I'ystoire qui point ne va mentant. 
 
 Ditto, 1666. 
 
 8. Quant li rois I’entendi, de coer va souspirant. 
 
 Berte aus Grans Pids, 2542. 
 
 9. La paiz alout cherchant, les querre metre a fin. 
 
 Roman de Rou, 1542. 
 
 10. Se li reis li alout de nule rien falsant. 
 
 Ditto, 2544. 
 
 11. Fortment lo vant il acusand. 
 
 La soa mort mult demandant. 
 
 La Passion, B. 16, 6-7. 
 
 12. Or pri a tous les vrais amans 
 Ceste chanson voisent chantant. 
 
 13. Ainz y mouron que sa'ion recreant, 
 
 Ne que de riens nous augeon fouyant. 
 
 Roman d’Aquin, 1635. 
 
 14. Li Tur vindrent assaillir sa gent qui tout 
 
 de gr^ s'aloient remanant. 
 
 Trans, de Gull, de Tyr, Liv. VII, 
 
 15. D’ores en autres va sa colpe rendant 
 A sa main destre aloit son piz batant. 
 
 Guil. d’Orange, B. 65, 38. 
 
 16. (Ja et 1^ espandu par le chemin et li plus 
 
 d’eus aloient dormant. 
 
 Tr. de Guil. de Tyr, Liv. XII. 
 
 All of these examples either show plainly 
 of themselves, or it may be gathered from 
 the context, that the idea of actual motion in 
 alter is totally wanting, as much so as it would 
 be in “go,” if we should translate example lo 
 by the popular construction : if the king 
 should go to deceiving him in any way. 
 
 , In Nos. I, 3, 4, 6, 10, the simple verbs : 
 demandez, mespensez, arestez, espargnez, 
 falsout, could be substituted without in any 
 way modifying the thought. It is quite evi¬ 
 dent that alez, in the first line of No. 3, is the 
 
The Gerundial Construction 
 
 exact functional equivalent of seiez in the 
 second line. We learn from the context of 
 No. 2 that Charlemagne found the knights 
 s'eant\ hence “se vunt esbaneiant ” means, 
 they are in the act of enjoying themselves— 
 progressive or continuative action. In 5 and 
 8 alter gives to the principal verb the notion 
 of incipiency as well as progression ; while 
 “ point ne va mentant,” in No. 8, may imply 
 that history is not hi the habit of lying. In ii 
 and 12 it is possibly repetitive. How com¬ 
 pletely the idea of real motion could be over¬ 
 looked may be learned from the last three 
 examples (14, 15, 16). 
 
 It is interesting to observe that old Johan 
 Fischart uses the German in a similar 
 
 manner, in his translation of Rabelais, head¬ 
 ing of chapter 4: 
 
 Wie Gurgelmiltsam, als sie mit dem kind- 
 lein Gurgellantule schwanger gieng, ein 
 grossen wust kutteln frass und davon genas. 
 The famous boast of Juno, in Virgil, offers a 
 like instance of the copulative use of a verb 
 of motion : 
 
 Ast ego, quae Divum incedo, Jovisque 
 Et soror et conjux. 
 
 In English it is a common idiom to say : to go 
 mad, blind, etc.; and we in the Southern 
 States are familiar with the negro lingo : done 
 gone and kilt him=has killed him ; but I was 
 hardly prepared, when some months ago I 
 was speaking of the death of a favorite dog, 
 to have put to me, by a Hoosier acquaintance, 
 the query : when did he go dead? or to find a 
 writer in The Nation of August 4, 1887, (p. 89) 
 speaking of somebody’s horse going dead 
 lame. 
 
 But returning to alter we see that, used as a 
 simple copula, it may shade off into a number 
 of fine distinctions, in which actual motion is 
 not necessarily implied. At the present day 
 many of these features of alter are supplied 
 by other constructions. Remnants of some of 
 its functions are seen in : 
 
 L'entreprise suffit ^ prouver que T^tude du 
 fran^ais va toujours prenant plus d’im- 
 portance en Allemagne. 
 
 Romania, IX. i66. 
 
 Et des bouches au loin s'ouvrent avidement, 
 
 A ces atomes fous que la nuit va semant. 
 
 Hugo, L'Ane. 
 
 hi the Romanic Languages. 
 
 Vous n’allez frtquaiitant que spadassins 
 infames. 
 
 Ditto, Ruy Bias, I. 2. 
 
 expressions, in which the combination of the 
 two verbs serves to indicate progression, 
 continuance or habit, but only weakly or not 
 at all that of motion. In translating the first 
 sentence into English we should say : is daily 
 becoming more important; in rendering the 
 second, to be exact, we should probably have 
 to make va subordinate to semant —sows as it 
 goes ; while the third is : you habitually asso¬ 
 ciate with, etc. 
 
 A rather peculiar combination of venir and 
 aller is found in the Roman d’Alexandre (B. 
 
 177.5): 
 
 Alexandres commande Tost amener avant, 
 
 Quar el bos as puceles vint aler deduisant. 
 
 In the formation of the compound tenses of 
 aller va the senses above illustrated, avoir is 
 generally, though not always, employed : 
 
 Et orent tant aid sofrant que il virent la Rouse 
 A mains de demie lieue. 
 
 Ville-Hardouin, Ch. 94. 
 
 Tant est alez Tiebalt son orguil demenant. 
 
 Roman de Rou, 4089. 
 
 £ com lo reis Fclips avia anat plaideian 
 sobre la riba de laiga. 
 
 Bil. der Troub. XXVI. 
 
 When lire is used, the verb more common¬ 
 ly retains its fundamental meaning of motion: 
 
 One ne Tot tel Aiquin ly amirez, 
 
 Qui par la mer fuyant s’en est alez. 
 
 Roman d’Aquin, 2517, 
 
 Partoutes terres est alez cunquerant. 
 
 Ch. de Roland, 553. 
 
 Desus un pin i est alez curant. 
 
 Ditto, 2363. 
 
 It is to be expected that constructions analo¬ 
 gous to these of aller should be found with 
 verbs of motion in the other languages. 
 
 Ch6 spero e vo sperando 
 
 Che ancora deggio avere 
 
 Allegro meo coraggio. 
 
 Federigo II, Rei di Sicilia. 
 
 Cuando dellos se despide, 
 
 Lagrimas va derramando. 
 
 Rom. del Cid, CIX. (Voegelin). 
 
 Mirabanie las mozas y andaban con los ojos 
 buscandole el rostro que la mala visera le 
 cncubria. 
 
 Don Quij. Ch. II, pt. i. 
 
 12 
 
The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 Por las venas cuitadas 
 
 La sangre su 6gura 
 
 Iba desconociendo y su natura. 
 
 Garcilasode la Vega. 
 
 NSo soffre muito a gente generosa 
 Andar-lhe os cies os dentes mostrando. 
 
 Camoens, Os Lus. I. 88. 
 
 E vereis ir cortando o salso argento 
 Os vossos Argonautas. 
 
 Ditto, I. i8. 
 
 £ non ai ges tel coratge 
 Com li fals drut an, 
 
 Que van galian. 
 
 G. Faidit, B. 142, 10. 
 
 Ill most of the sister languages, other verbs 
 of motion besides “go” are made to perform 
 the office of copulas. In the Italian expres¬ 
 sion : si venne accorgendo, venne is not only 
 a copula but has also the force of an adverb of 
 manner—little by little he perceived. 
 
 Molti esempj potrci venir contando. 
 
 Vitt. Colonna. 
 
 The Spanish and Portuguese use, perhaps, 
 a greater number of verbs of motion in this 
 way than any of the others. In the former, 
 andar, ir, venir are employed to e.xpress du¬ 
 ration or gradual action, while caminar, con- 
 tinuar, seguir are confined to continued 
 action. So Portuguese grammarians dis¬ 
 tinguish between andar and ir, the former 
 being frequentative. Accordingly they say: 
 ando estudando as linguas antigas, which 
 means, I am making a continual and frequent 
 study of the ancient languages; while : vou 
 convalescendo would mean continuation in a 
 progressive sense—I am getting better every 
 day. The context of the two passages above 
 quoted from the Lusiads seems to bear out 
 this distinction. 
 
 Many cases arise in which it is not easy to 
 determine whether alter is a copula or 
 whether its action is coordinate with that of 
 the gerund. 
 
 Li gatle qui estoU sor le tor les vit venir ct 
 ol qu’il aloient de Nicolete parlant. 
 
 Aucasin et Nicolete, B. 283, 36. 
 
 Mais qtiant ainnm mendiani. 
 
 dr vicllroc vu trunluiit, 
 
 U I'apclc por airline. 
 
 I'loic Cl lilaiu elior, 76^. 
 
 I*overtadc va gridandn 
 A gran voce predicando. 
 
 (Jiacopone da Todi. 
 
 In the first of these it is said that the guard 
 saw coming the men whom Count Garin had 
 sent to look for Nicolete and heard that they 
 were talking, or were talkhtg as they went 
 along, about Nicolete. The other examples 
 are not clearer, even when studied in con¬ 
 nexion with the passages in which they occur. 
 
 We next come to a third and very frequent 
 use of alter with the gerund, in which motion 
 is clearly defined. It belongs, in this sense, 
 then, to the general category of verbs of 
 motion, which may be accompanied by a ger¬ 
 und whose action is subordinate to, or, at 
 most, coordinate with, that of the verb -of 
 motion. 
 
 Alter. 
 
 Sans Pedre sols seguen lo val, 
 
 Quar sua fin veder voldrat. 
 
 Passion du Christ, B. 9. 14. 
 
 A foe, a flamma vai ardant 
 
 £t a gladies persccutan. 
 
 Vie de S. Leger, B. 16. 39. 
 
 Venir, 
 
 Done vint edrant dreitmant a la mer. 
 
 Vie de S. Alexis, B. si. 38. 
 
 Monier, descendre. 
 
 Muntent et descendent chantant e esjol 
 
 Li beiis angeres du ciel. 
 
 Vie de Seint Auban, X093. 
 
 Passer, 
 
 Passastes par Bretiaine d'orient venant. 
 
 Ditto, 1127. 
 
 S'adresser, 
 
 I/enfant ne quaisse ne ne blece, 
 
 Fuiant vers un chemin s'adrece. 
 
 Crestien de Troies, B. 145.15. 
 
 ReParier. 
 
 Et li altre s'en reparierent fuiant arriere en Tost. 
 
 Ville-Hardouin, ch. XXI. 
 
 Tourner. 
 
 Sun petit pas s’en turnet cancelant. 
 
 Ch. de Roland, 2227. 
 
 Quand paiens virent Gormund mort, 
 
 Fuiant s'en tournent vers le port. 
 
 Gormund and Isembard, 421 (Rom. St. III. 562). 
 
 Entrer, 
 
 Main a main entrent dedans lor chids saignant. 
 
 Amis et Amiles, B. 62. 11. 
 
 ysuiH ir . 
 
 I' i ll <lc -aillrnr l ultrc .^iiniiiii.itii. 
 
 Uoiiiun dt: Ki>u, 3236. 
 
 Issir. 
 
 Richart ist de la vile sur son cheval curant. 
 
 Ditto, 3246. 
 
 13 
 
The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 Accourir. 
 
 Kar de Roem acurent burgeis e paisant, 
 
 Macues e guisarmes e haches aportant. 
 
 Ditto, 4093. 
 
 £j/i 7 r^r^{=dchapper). 
 
 E Normant lur estordent ** Dieu aie ** criant. 
 
 Ditto, 3235. 
 
 Encalcer. 
 
 Vers Saraguce les encalcent ferant, 
 
 A colps pleniers les en vunt ociant. 
 
 Ch. de Roland, 
 
 Sourdre, 
 
 Par la priere Auban est surse du pendant 
 
 Funtainne freide e clere k grand ruissel curant. 
 
 Vie de S. Auban, 1167. 
 
 Ap^arnitre, 
 
 Angeres i aparurent k clerc voiz chantant. 
 
 Ditto, 1182. 
 
 It is useless to add more to this list; for 
 constructions of this kind are so often met, 
 that I believe it would not be a rash state¬ 
 ment to say that about four-fifths of all the 
 examples of the gerund without en will be 
 found to be accompanied with a verb of 
 motion. To see how the proportion would 
 stand, I have counted the examples in several 
 characteristic works. It will be observed that 
 some authors are much fonder of this mode 
 of thought-expression than others. The 
 figures indicate the number of times the con¬ 
 struction occurs with the verbs they follow. 
 
 Voyage de Charlemagyie (860 lines). Tour- 
 ner, 2; remeindre, i; trouver, 2; aller, 6; 
 voir, i; tenir, i; venir, i; absolute(?) 2. 
 
 Chanson de Roland (4002 lines). Aller, 28 ; 
 venir, i; absolute(?), i; mourir, 2 ; tourner, i; 
 encalcer, i. 
 
 Roman d'Aquin (3087 lines). Tourner, 2; 
 aller, 30; voir, i ; gesir, i; venir, i. 
 
 Berte aus Grans Pies (3482 lines). Faire, i; 
 aller, 2; trouver, i ; venir, i. 
 
 Flor et Blanceflor (3342 lines). Aller, 8; 
 venir, 2. 
 
 H. de Valenciennes (Hist, de I’Empereur 
 Henri). Envoyer, i; aller, 7; venir, i; che- 
 vaucher, i; absolute)?). 
 
 Gtiiot de Brovins (La Bible). Aller, 4. 
 
 Traduction de Gtiil. de Tyr. Courir, i ; 
 mener, i ; chevaucher, i ; prendre, i ; tre- 
 bucher, i; venir, ii; faire, 2; suivre, 3; 
 absolute)?), ii; fuir, i; instrumental, 3; trou¬ 
 ver, I; retourner, 4; oir, i ; aller, ii ; chasser, 
 I ; mourir, i. 
 
 Vie de Seint Audan (1845 lines). Venir, 2 ; 
 aller, 21; gesir, i; absolute)?), 3; remaindre, 
 I; resplendir, i; oir, i; trouver, 3 ; passer, i; 
 laisser, i; voir, i; surdre, i; aparaistre, i; 
 faillir, i. 
 
 Ville-Hardouin (La Conqueste de Constan- 
 tinoble). Reparier, i; aller, 7 ; venir, 3; 
 tourner, i; envoyer, i; absolute)?), 2. 
 
 De Joinville (Hist, de Saint Louis). Venir, 
 6 ; trouver, 2 ; aller, 2; faire, i; as adverb, i; 
 sentir, i; absolute)?), 2. 
 
 Aiol et Mirabel (10,985 lines). Aller, 68; 
 venir, 9 ; oir, i; encaucher, i; absolute)?), 2 ; 
 tourner, 2 ; fuir, i; par, i. 
 
 It seems almost superfluous to cite examples 
 from the other languages, as this French con¬ 
 struction is universally current throughout the 
 whole Romanic group. That, however, 
 nothing may be taken on faith, I 'give a few 
 from hundreds of examples noted, remarking 
 that I have been struck with the more 
 frequent occurrence of the construction in 
 early French and Proven9al, especially with 
 aller and venir, than in any of the others. 
 
 Provengal. 
 
 Laisse loill, e per nuilla re 
 
 No venga ves lui trop corren. 
 
 Daiide de Pradas, B. 177. 32. 
 
 Car 90 es pessamentz confus 
 
 Que ven en cor aissi corren. 
 
 Ditto, El Romanz, 1 . 49 (Stickney's ed). 
 
 Un bon juzieu que aquo auzi, 
 
 Tantost corren d’aqui parti. 
 
 B.'s Denkmaler, XXXIX. p. 274. 
 
 E Peire Vidals s’en isset fugen. 
 
 Bib. der Troub. XXII. 
 
 Italian. 
 
 Salian scherzando i pargoletti amori. 
 
 Ariosto, sonetto. 
 
 E quando a morte deseando corro. 
 
 Petrarca. 
 
 Ch’io mi parti’sbigottito fugendo. 
 
 Guido Cavalcanti. 
 
 Chiara fontana ancor surgea d'un monte 
 
 Mormorando con aqua dolce e fresca. 
 
 Tasso, Gerus. Conquist. XV. 44. 
 
 E che accorrer potea un giorno 
 
 Camminando alia bufera. 
 
 Giorgi Bertola. 
 
 Spanish. 
 
 Los males vienen corriendo 
 
 Jorge Manrique. 
 
 La olvidada infanta Urraca 
 
 Vertiendo 1 grimas entra. 
 
 Rom, del Cid. p. 96. (.Voegelin). 
 
 14 
 
The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 De zamora sale Dolfos 
 Corriendo y apresurado. 
 
 Ditto, p. 152. 
 
 La pied, sacdmiel, fu^se volando. 
 
 Luis Martin. 
 
 Porttfguese. 
 
 .e as terras viciosas 
 
 De Africa e de Asia andavam devastando. 
 
 Camoens, Os Lus. I. 2. 
 Pizando o crystallino cdo formoso 
 Vem pela Via Latea. 
 
 Ditto, I. 20. 
 
 Mas o animal atroce nesse instante 
 
 Bramando duro corre. 
 
 Ditto, I, 78. 
 
 Wallachian, 
 
 C 3 Jonanti a venitii nice mancandu niegbendii 
 Math, XI. 18, 
 
 Vine alergand pe scena cu un snop de burnene in 
 manu. ^ • 
 
 V. Alecsandri, Mama Anghelusa. 
 Halmana in costum de larna trece tinend o valizil. 
 
 Ditto, Haimana. 
 
 With verbs of motion there may be, in 
 general, two kinds of construction in conjunc¬ 
 tion with other verbs: namely, that already 
 illustrated, in which the gerund accompanies 
 the finite verb; and a second, in which the 
 infinitive is used with or without a preposition. 
 The latter use of the infinitive is by far the 
 more common. In either case, that is, whether 
 the preposition be used or not, the verb of 
 motion expresses the purpose to be ac¬ 
 complished by the concomitant infinitive. The 
 distinction in shade of meaning is usually 
 this ; when the idea of purpose is strongly 
 implied, the preposition serves to give promi¬ 
 nence to the purpose ; whereas the preposition 
 is omitted when the purpose is not conspicu¬ 
 ous. We may illustrate this by the sentences: 
 Je vais au theatre m’amuser tons les soirs, and 
 je vais au theatre tons les soirs non-seulement 
 pour m’amuser mais aussi pour observer et 
 pour apprendre—a distinction, which we 
 should secure in English by : for the ptirpose 
 of or by the simple infinitive with to, accord¬ 
 ing as we did, or did not, desire to emphasize 
 the purpose. 
 
 La fame Amile a la clere fason 
 Estoit alee por faire s'orison. 
 
 Amis et Amiles, B. 61. 37. 
 
 La donzela, e per saber 
 Si sa beutatz era tan grans. 
 
 Guillem de la Bara (Meyer, Recueil, p. 128.) 
 
 This reference to the infinitive construction 
 with a verb of motion has been made, in order 
 to lead up to the consideration of certain 
 cases in which the infinitive and gerund 
 touch each other so nearly, in point of use and 
 signification, that they become virtual equiva¬ 
 lents. 
 
 I. II se relieve a grant paine 
 Par grant air le va requerre, 
 
 Roman de Renart, B. 213. 9. 
 
 2. Quant il nous virent, il nous vindrent 
 sus courre. 
 
 Joinville, Hist, de S. Louis, ch. XLVI. 
 
 3. Aisi se van ferir cum cascus venc 
 No lor valo escut pur un besenc. 
 
 G. de Rossilho, 2180. 
 
 4. L'effant Jhesus i ameneron. 
 
 Ad Arian lo prezenteron. 
 
 Pueis van li dire e pregar, 
 
 Que reflfant volgues essenhar. 
 
 B/s Denkmaler, xxxix. p. 273, 
 
 5. Arian vai li demandar: 
 
 Mon effant, ar digas aleph 
 E en apres tu diras beph. 
 
 Ditto, p. 273. 
 
 6. Grans meravilhas se doneron. 
 
 Per la vila s'en van cridan. 
 
 Ditto, p. 274. 
 
 7. E totz los juzieus van cridar : 
 
 Ailas caitiu ! e que ferem 
 
 Ni qual cosselh penre porem ? 
 
 Ditto, p. 292. 
 
 8. E en apres el manda diire als mainaders 
 
 Ez als baros de Fransa ez als sieus logadiers. 
 Chanson de la Croisade des Albigeois, 8,412. 
 
 9. E mandet dire a nUgo de la signa que 
 vengues a Usercha en un bore on estava en 
 Gaucelm Faidit. 
 
 Bib. derTroub. XL. 
 
 10. Volga la vista (^esiosa e lieta 
 Cercandomi. 
 
 Petrarca. 
 
 11. Mand6 il cavaliero all’albergo della 
 corona, sappiendo (=:ad informarsi) se era suo 
 famiglio. 
 
 Franco Sachetti. 
 
 12. E estando de fora, enviarAo a elle cha- 
 mando-o. 
 
 Marcos, III. 31. 
 
 Ahtant se volgran acordar 
 Qual duy pogran anar veser 
 
 13. Os Portuguezes somos do Occidente, 
 Imos buscando as terras doOriente. 
 
 15 
 
The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 Os Lus. I, 50. 
 
 14. Que tempo concertado e ventos tinha 
 Para ir buscando 0 Indo desejado. 
 
 Ditto, I. gs. 
 
 15. Si neaflandii- 10 , s’afi intorsti la Jerusa- 
 limQ cantanda-lti. 
 
 Luca, II. 45. 
 
 x6. Porque viene mi nina 
 Cogiendo flores. 
 
 Anonymous, isih cent. 
 
 The first of the examples is not very decid¬ 
 ed, for although, as the context shows, Dans 
 Constanz, considering his position, does not 
 have to “go” in order to strike Isengrin, va 
 requerre may express future, rather than pro¬ 
 gressive, action. Still there can be no doubt 
 but that, in accordance with the freedom, I 
 might almost say, looseness, of the gerundial 
 construction at this time, the author, if push¬ 
 ed for a rime, would not have scrupled to use, 
 all the circumstances and situations remaining 
 the same, the gerund as an equivalent for the 
 infinitive, without feeling he was guilty of any 
 grammatical negligence. A part of this re¬ 
 mark might apply to the quotation from 
 Girart de Rossilho; but the passage shows 
 rather that van ferir means that the knights 
 continue ihe fight, “cum cascus venc ; ” i. e. 
 van is subordinate to ferir, in other words, 
 copulative; so that the same numice of 
 thought might have been rendered by i>an 
 fereyi. 
 
 In No. 2, it is plain that courant substituted 
 for courre would not vary, in the slightest 
 degree, the thought, wliich is: they came 
 rushing upon us. The first two lines of No. 
 
 4 inform us that the parents of Jesus were 
 already in the presence of Arian. It can not, 
 therefore, be said of them literally x'an, they 
 go; wox CM\ van dire be explained here 
 as future. Being already before Arian, they 
 speak to him and request him to undertake 
 the instruction of their son; or they go on 
 telline: thCix story and requesthigfhxxi, etc. 
 
 No. s contains a still more decided instance 
 ofllie copiilatix f use \ da)HU \ as vai UdeniiUi- 
 f/ifc uieaiis H dt inandw notliiiig more. In 
 inoiletn I'leiu li venir is soinelimes used in 
 \ ery nearly the same way : I'n sourire livide , 
 \'ient glacer ses traits, {/.e Rmnfais, Boston, j 
 vol. i, p. 55). I 
 
 A comparison of 6 and 7, taken in connex¬ 
 ion with the passages in which they occur, 
 shows the same approximation in thought¬ 
 shading, of s’en van cridan and van cridar ; 
 the difference, if any, is very slight. So 
 manda diire and mandet dire, in the two 
 following examples, are seen to be modes of 
 expression analogous to: mandet disen, pre- 
 gan in : E tan tost com el fo vengutz el man¬ 
 det disen al Dalfil et al comte Guion que ill 
 li deguessen aiudar. Bib. der Troub. XIV.; 
 in: el li mandet pregan qu’el fezes si qu’el 
 fezes mudar los edificis, ditto, B. 241, 15; to : 
 mandd sappiendo (No. ii); and to the Portu¬ 
 guese ; enviarao chamando (No. 12). The 
 Wallachian and Spanish would likewise use 
 the gerund here after the verb to send. And 
 so Henri de Valenciennes, in the work already 
 quoted (ch. IV), uses enz'oyer: Et envoierent 
 lor archiers huant et glatissant et faisant une 
 noise. Cf. also Romania VIII, 9o:Je me 
 levoy un matin au jort prenant, Entvoy m’en 
 en un giardin la flor culhant. In modern 
 French also the gerund after this same verb, 
 as well as after other verbs of motion, is allow¬ 
 able to express a purpose, although the in¬ 
 finitive is more common, in accordance with a 
 general preference which the Frenchman 
 entertains for the infinitive construction, 
 where no ambiguity arises by its use.* 
 
 M. de Freycinet a appris qu’une note, dma- 
 nant du minist^re de I’int^rieur, avait dt^ en¬ 
 voy^ disant que M. de Freycinet avait 
 capital^. 
 
 Courrier des Etats Unis. 
 
 J’eus peur d’avoir senti la peur une fois, et 
 prenant mon sabre, cachd sous mon bras, 
 j’entrai le premier brusquement donnant 
 l’exem|)le a mes grenadiers. 
 
 A. de Vigny. 
 
 A^tius avait d^ja d^pech^ ses courriers dans 
 toute la Gaule et chez les peoples alli&, les 
 invitant a s’unir h lui. 
 
 Le Beau. 
 
 G’est le voyageur quo nous avons vu tout h 
 riioiuo oner clioroliaiu un gito. 
 
 \ . Hug.,. 
 
 It is Util p.issiblo ii, iutorpret tliosc geruui.ls 
 
 ♦II esi (Ians le gt^nie tie la langue frana 9 ise de preftVcr I’in- 
 finilif h tom autre mode, quand la clarn5 de la phra.sc n’en csi 
 pas alierdc, — H okel. 
 
The Geruvdial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 otherwise than as expressing a purpose ; for in 
 some of them the infinitive with pour could 
 be substituted; and in the others, while in 
 their present shape this substitution could 
 hardly be made, its exclusion would be more 
 owing to the cacophony that would thereby 
 arise than to any forbidding principle of gram¬ 
 mar. In the case of the first and last sentence, 
 a well-educated Frenchman, if asked why not 
 use pour dire and pour chercher, would likely 
 answer: C’est I’harmonie de la phrase qui 
 exige le g^rondif (participe), as Vharmonie is 
 the universal retreat behind which French¬ 
 men take shelter, when brought face to face 
 with a knotty point of grammar. 
 
 The gerunds in lo, 15, 16 may as legitimate¬ 
 ly be regarded as expressing a purpose as co¬ 
 incident or progressive action, and the thought 
 would not be materially changed, if they were 
 converted into the infinitive construction. 
 We see this well illustrated in the two remain¬ 
 ing examples (13 and 14), which do not differ 
 essentially in signification, since the purpose 
 of the going, in both cases, is to look for 
 India. 
 
 From the foregoing reasoning we gather 
 that, after a verb of motion, the infinitive or 
 gerund may take the place of a final depend¬ 
 ent clause. 
 
 Here belong also certain verbs, which, 
 while they are not verbs of motion, are ac¬ 
 companied by verbals in -a 7 it which serve to 
 complete, in a manner, the predication of the 
 principal verb. They may, in most cases, be 
 resolved into adverbial phrases. 
 
 Car ml fil sont ocis et mort saignan.. 
 
 Amis et Amiles, H. 62. 37. 
 
 A peine chant remeint li quors en piz batant. 
 
 Vie de S. Auban, 844. 
 
 Je li lo bienqu'elle vos maint tandant. 
 
 Jeu-parti, 341. 16. 
 
 Murut subitement scant sus une sele. 
 
 Ilerte aus Grans Pi^s, 2072. 
 
 Lo corns G. e ilh sen s'en van dolen, 
 
 0 E Ihi baro dc K. restan ploran, 
 
 G. de Rossilho, 5340. 
 
 Tlie nature of the examples considered up 
 to the present time has been such that the 
 action of the dependent verb (gerund or infini- 
 him complete the action ; 2d, that I saw him 
 performing an act which he began before I 
 looked and may havecontinned after I turned 
 
 away ; but for the present: I see him going in¬ 
 to the house, only ; since, I see him go into the 
 house, can only be said of a habit or an action 
 indefinitely repeated and would usually be 
 accompanied by an adverb indicating the 
 habit, etc; as, I see him go into the house 
 every day. However, here, as in other things, 
 what ought to be is at variance with what 
 actually is, and we find a great freedom in the 
 use of the infinitive. Indeed, with the excep¬ 
 tion of to find {meet, come upo 7 i, etc.), the in¬ 
 finitive (or some other construction) has gen¬ 
 erally usurped, in the modern languages, the 
 place of the gerund, and is used to express both 
 completed and continued action, according to 
 the construction of the sentence. 
 
 Trouver. 
 
 Ses maisuns truva arses e ses viles ardant, 
 
 E un suen fils truva mort en biere gisant, 
 
 E sa femme e sa gent merveillus duel faisant. 
 
 Roman de Rou, 4104. 
 
 Vint milie chevaliers i troverent seant, 
 
 E sunt vestut de palies e de hermines blans. 
 
 Voyage de Charlemagne, 267. 
 
 Les enfans trueve gisanz soz la valee, 
 
 En seant ierent, s’ont grant joie menee. 
 
 Amis et Amiles. 
 
 Lc maillet troverent pendant 
 A la port par de devant. 
 
 Le Pelerinage Renart, 93. 
 
 E quand venc un dia, Raimons de Castel 
 Rosillon trobet passan Guillem de Cabestaing. 
 
 Bib. derTroub., IX. 
 
 This construction is still preserved, in all its 
 freedom, in the modern language: 
 
 Linus venant du ciel sur Pegase, au relai, 
 
 Troiive votre sorci re enfourchant son balai. 
 
 V. Hugo, Religions et Religion, p. 33. 
 
 L’abb6 alia rejoindre Jeanne et Gabriel, 
 qu’il trouva se promenant avec tristesse dans 
 le pare dii chateau. 
 
 Alc^e Fortier, Gabriel d’Ennerich, p. 23. 
 It is, moreover, common to the whole group of 
 Romance tongues, as may be illustrated by 
 the 46th verse of the 24th cliapter of Matthew, 
 which has been rendered by them all in the 
 same manner. 
 
 Heureux ce serviteur que son niaitre trou- 
 vera faisant ainsi quand il arrivera. 
 
 Beato quel servitore, il quale il suo signore, 
 quando egli verra, trovera facendo cosi. 
 
 Bienaventiirado aquel siervo, alcnal, cuan- 
 
 17 
 
The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 do sii Seiior viniere, le liallare haciendo asi. 
 
 Bienaveiitiirado aquelle servo, ao qual, 
 quando seu Senhor vier, o achar fazendo 
 assim. 
 
 Fericitiieste servulti acela, pre care, venindtt 
 domiauia seii, ’lii va afla facendQ a§a. 
 
 Luther translated here by the infinitive with¬ 
 out any apparent reason, as it was departing 
 from the Greek (o v tXScov 6 uvpioi avrov 
 Evpvdei ovTOoi Ttviuvera), and we find him 
 using the participle with yfwo'cw in Marc XIII, 
 36 : auf dass er nicht schnell komme und finde 
 euch schlafend. The infinitive is not admissi¬ 
 ble in the Romanic languages, as far as my 
 observation goes, but is still current in Ger¬ 
 man, its use depending upon certain condi¬ 
 tions, the discussion of which would be out of 
 place here. 
 
 Ouir (entendre). 
 
 The gerund or infinitive is indififerently used 
 without any appreciable distinction. 
 
 Examples: 
 
 Fors fut la noise etla bataille grans 
 Et li hustins mervillous et pesans, 
 
 N’i oissiez nes damedeu tonnant. 
 
 Ch. de Gibert de Metz (Rom. St. I, 464). 
 
 Nils tut VO veimes ke m'o"z recuntant. 
 
 Vie d S. Auban, 1184. 
 
 Et frainte d’armes i avait par tout, que Ten 
 n’oist mie Dieu tonant. 
 
 Tr. de Guil. de Tyr, Liv. iv. 
 
 Li arcevesque les ot contrarier. 
 
 Ch. de Roland, 1737. 
 
 llloec m'assis pour escouter 
 Deus dames quej'oi parler. 
 
 Flore et Hlanceflor, 44. j 
 
 Car adonc aguera om ausit les sens et campanas i 
 sonar al repiquet. ^ j 
 
 Ch. de la Croisade d’Albigeois. i 
 
 “Summae Deus clementiae,” nel seno 
 Del grand' ardore allora iidi’ cantanoo. 
 
 Dante, Purg. XXV, 122. 
 
 K degU uccelli le diverse e tante 
 Odo voci cantar dolci e gioconde. 
 
 Vitt. Colonna. 
 
 Le oigo hablando con un hombre desconocido. 
 
 .Sauer’s Gram, espagnole. 
 
 Aslfelttl aiuli pero tengra cochetS parisianS 
 dicGul ca a primiit un puiii de gainS. 
 
 \’. Alecsandri. 
 
 The Wallachian excejited, the modern lan¬ 
 guages seem to avoid the gerund with words 
 signifying to hear, and the infinitive or a rela- i 
 
 five clause is used instead. The two following 
 examples with e 7 ttendre, which now usually 
 takes the place of the obsolescent ouir, will 
 serve to illustrate the use of the infinitive to 
 express completed or progressive action. 
 
 J’ai entendu le rossignolet chanter dans son 
 langage. Romania, IX, 565. 
 
 Mais tout se tait. Je n'entends rien venir. 
 
 V. Hugo, Hernani. 
 
 It is not pretended, of course, that entendre 
 is not constructed with the gerund; yet it 
 does not seem possible to lay down a rule for 
 its use. Judging from this sentence: Enten- 
 dons maintenant Alcuin signalant ^ Charle¬ 
 magne les memes abus (Haur^au), we might 
 probably apply to entendre what further on is 
 said of iwir. 
 
 Ecouter. 
 
 On 4 coutait avec plaisir les Jongleurs chan- 
 tant les jestes des anciens. 
 
 Paulin Paris, Preface to Guil. de Tyr. 
 I'oir (with the gerund). 
 
 Jeo vi, dist il, une mult bele 
 
 Par desus les ewes montant. 
 
 Guil. le Clerc de Normandie. 
 
 Quant le virenl en Pair salant, 
 
 Bauduin de Sebourc, B. 397, 8. 
 
 Quant li sires le vit venant. 
 
 Si le salua maintenant 
 
 Li Contes del Graal, B. 166, 17. 
 
 Jeu VOS vigui entre los layois penden 
 
 On VOS fazian irops grans escarnimens. 
 
 Plainte de Notre Dame, 58. 
 
 K vidi spirti per la fiamma andando. 
 
 Dante, Purg, XXV., 124. 
 
 Vido al conde paseando 
 
 Y estas palabras le ha dicho. 
 
 Rom. del Cid (Voegelin). 
 
 Diego, f, Que viste ? 
 
 Al gran Fernando, 
 
 Mi vida con mi muerte amenazando. 
 
 G. de Castro, Moc. del Cid, Pt. seg. 1 , 4. 
 
 Como vereis o mar fervendo acceso 
 
 Co’ os incendios dos vossos pelejando. 
 
 Os Lus, II, 54 (also II, 68). 
 
 Cine m’ar viclea cutrieranci ora.sul cu valiza 
 pe spinare, ar cuteza porte a crede cS shit 
 vagabond ? 
 
 V. Alecsandri, Halmana. 
 /L) 7 V(with the infinitive). 
 
 Quant ele venir ne le voit, 
 
 'I'antost arriere s’tn relorne. 
 
 Fabliatis des Pcrdris, B, 293, 24. 
 
 18 
 
The Gertindial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 .donde il mattin partille, 
 
 Vedendo di lontano fumar le ville. 
 
 Giusto de’ Conte Romano. 
 
 Veras despues las potencias 
 Ir valiendo.... 
 
 Juan Rufe. 
 
 .o grao Thebano 
 
 Olliando oajuntamento Lucitano 
 As mouro ser molesto e aborrecido. 
 
 Os Lus. I, 73. 
 
 Occasionally both constructions are found 
 in the same sentence : 
 
 Mult veisslez formant issir aronez Normanz 
 Querre turneiemens e juste demandanz. 
 
 Roman de Rou, 3357. 
 
 Ed al nome dell’ alto Maccabeo 
 Vidi muoversi un altro roteando. 
 
 Dante, Pur. XVIII, 41. 
 
 E quand’ eo veggio li altri cavalieri 
 Arme portare e d'amore parlando. 
 
 Folcacchiero de’ Folcacchieri. 
 
 The infinitive is much the more common, 
 even where the gerund would be more logical. 
 This is especially true of the Old French. It 
 would be but reasonable, for instance, to ex¬ 
 pect in the quotation from Guillaume 
 
 d’Orange (B. 65, 18); 
 
 Vivien vit gesir desoz un guet 
 Desoz un abre qu'est foillus et ramez. 
 
 For Guillaume did not see Vivien lie down 
 but saw him already in that posture {tying), as 
 any other man would, without doubt, have 
 been who had had his body pierced with fifteen 
 wounds, from any one of which (the old 
 romancer naively adds) an emir would have 
 died. 
 
 What was said with reference to the current 
 construction with verbs signifying to hear, 
 holds, with some little modification, of verbs 
 meaning to see. 
 
 The Wallachian, which is generally more 
 varied in its syntax than the other members of 
 its group, makes very free use of the gerund. 
 Of thirty odd instances noted in the Bible, the 
 Italian, .Spanish and Portuguese translate by 
 the infinitive or a relative clause, while the 
 Wallachian invariably employs the gerund. 
 I'his is strictly in accordance with the rule laid 
 down by the grammarians—the Italian gerund 
 being excluded by the grammatical dictum, 
 that the gerund should always refer to the sub¬ 
 ject ; while for the Portuguese and .Spanish the 
 
 infinitive is to be preferred (unless the idea of 
 duration is to be made very prominent), and 
 always where the principle verb is in a past 
 tense or the object is a noun. The Wallachian, 
 however, is not trammeled by any such restric¬ 
 tions, provided the thought is clearly ex¬ 
 pressed. It is this latter point which deter¬ 
 mines, to a great extent, the syntax of the ger¬ 
 und in all these languages. The Italian has 
 probably not gained anything by its rigorous 
 e.xactness. In such cases as those cited from 
 the Divina Commedia and in the one follow¬ 
 ing, from Vittoria Colonna, there could be no 
 possible misunderstanding and, consequently, 
 there is no good reason why the construction 
 should have fallen under the ban of the gram¬ 
 marian. 
 
 Ed a mirar i lor piJi cari armenti 
 Pascendo insieme far piacevol guerra. 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that the rule 
 often prevents ambiguity in a very neat way. 
 Separated from its context, the following stanza 
 from Metastasio’s canzonetta. La Potenza, 
 might present some difficulty, smee giimgendo 
 could logically be taken either with quanti or 
 with the subject of vedrai. The possible mis¬ 
 understanding is obviated by applying the rule. 
 
 Quanti vedrai giungendo 
 Al nuovo tuo soggiorno, 
 
 Quanti venirti intorno 
 k offrirti amore e fe. 
 
 The same ambiguity is avoided in : 
 
 Ch’amor quest’ occhi lagrimando chuida. 
 
 Petrarca. 
 
 The French easily evades the difficulty by 
 the use of en before the gerund ; En arrivant 
 a ton nouveau s 4 jour combien de personnes tu 
 verras &c. E71 with the gerund always express¬ 
 ing adverbial relations, it can never take the 
 place of an adjective clause and must conse¬ 
 quently affect the action of the principal verb 
 and not its object. 
 
 At the present day the construction in 
 French with verbs of seeing and synonymous 
 import is dependent upon conditions more 
 easily felt than defined. It would be rash to 
 make the rule a general one; because this 
 would leave full .scope for a promiscuous use 
 of the gerund, which would not coincide with 
 jwactice. I believe that a rule formulated 
 somewhat as follows would serve as a pretty 
 
 19 
 
The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 safe guide: namely, the gerund occurs more 
 frequentlywith a verb in a past tense and that 
 in any case it should have an object or some 
 phrase to modify its action. 
 
 J’ai vu les vents grondant sur les moissons 
 superbes. 
 
 Delille. 
 
 Les moines et les pr^tendus savants ne 
 virent dans cet obscur Stranger qu’un aventu- 
 rier cherchant fortune de ses chimdres. 
 
 Lamartine. 
 
 Ils en ^taient 1^ quand des paysans les aper- 
 9urent marchant cote a cote dans I’enclos. 
 
 Saintine. 
 
 Je les vois cherchant ^ deviner des dnigmes 
 sans mots et je les aide ^ s’embrouiller. 
 
 George Sand. 
 
 Jeme d^fie de la dialectique, quand je vois 
 I’esprit hiimain tournant sur lui-meme. 
 
 Nisard. 
 
 La famille en pulit et vit en frJmissant 
 
 Dans la poudre du greffe un po'te naissant 
 
 Boileau, 
 
 II contemplait la forme svelte et ^l^gante 
 de la jeune fille traversant la cour an bras du 
 docteur. 
 
 X. de Mont^pin. 
 
 Je t’ai vu la griffonant sur ton genou et 
 chantant d^s le matin. 
 
 Beaumarchais. 
 
 Sentir. 
 
 The construction of this verb, which falls 
 under the same rubric as other verbs of per¬ 
 ception, has been noted in a few instances; 
 but considered either with reference to modern 
 or early usage, it does not call for any special 
 discussion which has not already been covered 
 by the remarks on other verbs of this class. 
 We need to stop, tlierefore, to notice only a 
 few e.xamples. 
 
 Quant il nous senti venans, il toucha en fuie. 
 
 Joinville, Hist, de S. Louis, ch. c. 
 
 Voltando sentirei le giostre graine. 
 
 Dante, Piirg. XYII, 42. 
 
 Y qiic con el deseo agonizando 
 
 Morir me siento de la misma suerte. 
 
 Anonymous, 15th Cent. 
 
 And in the modern languages : 
 
 Mais il la sentit menteuse, incapable de se 
 garder, se donnant aux amis, aux passants, en 
 bonne bete n^'^e pour vi\ re sans chemise. 
 
 Zola,Nana, p. 474. 
 
 La pauvre femme se sentit litt^ralement 
 mourir. 
 
 X. de Mont^pin. 
 
 Epopea nella quale si sente palpitare il cuore 
 di tutto un popolo. 
 
 Nuova Antologia, Sec. Ser. XXIV, 385, 
 Faire. 
 
 Our attention will now be claimed by faire, 
 which occurs with verbals in -ant, and which, 
 as already observed, requires special consid¬ 
 eration. It may be stated at the outset that 
 this construction has been found only in early 
 French and Provencal and is probably pecu¬ 
 liar to these languages. And again, its total 
 absence from some authors is somewhat re¬ 
 markable; while others use it only with en- 
 tenda 7 it, which usually, tho’ not always, may 
 he translated by the passive voice. This fact, 
 together with the observation that certain 
 combinations of the -ant forms with the pre¬ 
 positions h, de, par, etc, were also susceptible 
 of a passive rendering, attracted my attention 
 quite early in my researches and led me to 
 conclude that not only the Latin present parti¬ 
 ciple and gerund, but also the gerundive (par¬ 
 ticiple in -dus) were, in some instances, hidden 
 under these verbals in -ant\ further, that the 
 construction of the gerund with faire, regard¬ 
 ed from the standpoint of its origin, not being 
 natural, the construction was probably refer¬ 
 able to the gerundive; and, finally, that the 
 fact of its appearing with an active force and 
 governing a case was effected through analogy 
 and confusion with the gerund and active ]rar- 
 ticiple. That is, if what has been assigned as 
 the probable cause of the inflexion of the 
 Wallachian gerund be true, it is the same jiro- 
 cess of passing from a jrassive to an active 
 meaning. In Merovingian Latin, too, we have 
 instances in which the passivity of the partici¬ 
 ple in -dus was o\’erIooked and it was allowed 
 togovern a case. In the “ foca monachorum ” 
 we read ; quis asinam pcrsiquenduin renum 
 invenet? i. e. quis asinam pcrsequcns regnum 
 invenit? There can be no doubt, I think, that 
 this is the proper interirretation ; and the case 
 is not an isolated one ; fijr in the same collec¬ 
 tion is found a similar interchange of functions 
 of the two parts of siieech : ciuis vivindum 
 secuhim vicit? Now, whether vivindmn be 
 
 20 
 
The Geriaidial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 here construed with quis or seculum, it has 
 the same force, that of vivens. 
 
 Returning now to the French and Proven¬ 
 cal, let us illustrate what has been said by 
 analyzing a few sentences. 
 
 Ainsi li fait la vielle entendant la favele. 
 
 Berte aiis Grans Pits, 2079. 
 
 Et ces choses vous rementoif-je pour vous 
 faire entendant aucune chose qui offierent ^ 
 ma mati^re. 
 
 Joinville, S. Louis, ch. XL. 
 
 Id in the first of these examples is a dative, 
 and vous, in the second, maybe so taken like¬ 
 wise ; and they might be turned into Latin, 
 root for root, in this way : 
 
 Illi facit vetula intendendam fabulam ; and 
 
 .vobis facere intendendas aliquas unas 
 
 causas etc. 
 
 But the Latin gerundive comes out much 
 plainer in cases where a preposition is used 
 with the verbal in -ant. 
 
 Des qu’al’eue de Diepe nus iriim esluignant, 
 
 Mais jeo ferrai anceis a cele eue passant. 
 
 Roman de Rou, 3806. 
 
 That is : ad (ab) ecce-illam aquam passandam. 
 
 Sire, on me fait a entendant (ad intenden- 
 dum) que vous av^s une fille &c. 
 
 Henri de Valenciennes, ch. IX. 
 
 If, in the following example from the Trans¬ 
 lation of Guillaume de Tyr, te is to be taken 
 for an accusative, as the form usually is, en- 
 te 7 idant is then active. 
 
 M6s cil anions le decent trop malement, qui 
 entendant le fit que il serait patriarches.* 
 
 Other similar constructions are not infre¬ 
 quently met, which are capable of being re¬ 
 solved into the Latin gerundive, as : 
 
 * The admission of the gerundive in early French offers a 
 satisfactory explanation of the construction in Tartuffe, I, i, 
 now a very common expression and one which, tho' an evident 
 difficulty in modern syntax, is passed over in silence by the 
 grammars. 
 
 Et Pon sail qu'elle est prude a son corps defendant. 
 
 By turning this into the Latin : ad suum corpus defenden- 
 dum, we at once see a reason for the construction and the diffi¬ 
 culty vanishes. The expression, therefore, originally meant, 
 as it still does; en se defendant contre une attaque; the 
 other meanings now attaching to it, such as, k contre-coeur, 
 avec repugnance etc., are derivative. The translator of Guil¬ 
 laume de Tyr uses an equivalent in Liv, II, ch. 2, where in 
 answer to Godefroiz, the king says : 
 
 Si y meismes la main comme efforcid, sur nous defendant. 
 
 Dont il lessa au roy, par pais faisaiit (per pa- 
 cem faciendam) la contee de Augo. 
 
 Joinville, ch. XVI. 
 
 Et bien voieiit ke se il par sens u par engen 
 u par treuage donnant (per tributaticum don- 
 andum) n’entrent en la chit^. 
 
 Henri de Valenciennes, ch. XVI. 
 
 And so in Joinville (ch. CX): par grant tr^u 
 rendant (per grande tributum reddendum). 
 
 Turning now to this sentence from Guil¬ 
 laume de Tyr (Liv. XI, ch. lo): 
 
 Et ceus qui ne s’en voudroient issir fesoient 
 remanoir seurement en leur teneures par ren¬ 
 dant une resnable somme d’avoir,—we seethe 
 construction has either become active or so 
 ambiguous in point of syntax that it could 
 hardly fail to be taken as such. 
 
 If we compare the above phrases with nu¬ 
 merous infinitive constructions, we shall have 
 an additional proof of a phenomenon already 
 discussed at some length, namely, the con¬ 
 stant Interchange ofverbals in-a«/ with the in¬ 
 finitives, without any apparent difference in 
 meaning or function. In Ville-Hardouin 
 we have many instances of the construction 
 in question. 
 
 Et mistrent grant paine ^ la ville prendre, 
 (ch. XCI), which is evidently represented by 
 the Latin, ad villam prehende 7 tda 7 n. And so 
 inch. XII: mais nos ne somes mie tant de 
 gent que par nos passage paier poons les lor 
 attendee—a construction, which, in the pas¬ 
 sages above cited from Joinville and Henri de 
 Valenciennes, we found explicable by a parti¬ 
 ciple derived from the Latin gerundive or par¬ 
 ticiple in -dus. 
 
 This will suffice, I think, to show that the 
 force of the gerundive construction partially, 
 at least, survived among the early French and 
 Provencal speaking people and brought about 
 the construction above canvassed ; altho’ it is 
 more than probable that they were unconscious 
 of this, owing to the identity of form with the 
 gerund and present active participle. And it 
 was likely this identity of form which led to 
 its being merged into the other verbals in -a 7 it 
 and apparently becoming active in force. 
 
 A few other examples collected, possibly 
 show this active force a little more clearly 
 than those already given, and I set them down 
 here as additional proof. 
 
 21 
 
The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 Car por fol sembleir 
 
 Me font cil fauls proiant d’ameir. 
 
 Guiot de Provins (Wackernagel XV). 
 Renarz mist I’aive sor le feu 
 Et la fist trestot boillant. 
 
 Roman de Renart, B. 209, 9. 
 
 E vuelh tenir autre viatge 
 On restaiire so que m’a fag perden. 
 
 Cadenet. 
 
 Tant estet enviro lo lor assetjamens 
 
 Tro grans cocha de fam fetz celz dedins rendens. 
 
 Peire de Corbiac, B. 213,22. 
 
 Olhs de merce, boca de chanzimen, 
 
 Nulhs horn nous ve que nol fassatz jauzen. 
 
 Peire Vidal, Song 44 (B.’s ed. 1857). 
 
 Not fazas ardit ne prezan 
 Ne ton cor non aviles tan. 
 
 Daude de Pradas, Four card. Virtues (Stickney's ed.). 
 
 With the exception of a son corps defendant, 
 all the constructions noticed under the head¬ 
 ing of faire have dropt into desuetude or 
 shaded off into other constructions still bear¬ 
 ing an affinity with the original. A la ville 
 prendre, for instance, would find its modern 
 offspring in : cl prendre la ville ; par pais fai- 
 sant in : en faisant la paix; and par trevage 
 donnant in ; en donnant {payant) le tribut.* 
 The direct objects of the verbs avoir, lais- 
 ser, tenir, guerpir and some others may be 
 accompanied by the verb in-««^ to express a 
 
 *It is proper to state that I was anticipated in the above 
 explanation by Mr. N. de Wailly in his “ Memoiresur la lan- 
 gue de Joinville,’* and that Prof. Adolf Tobler (Vermischte 
 Beitrage zur Franzosischen Grammatik), Paul Klemenz 
 (Der syntactische Gebrauch des Participium Praesentis und 
 des Gerundiums im Altfranz^sischen) and others have ex¬ 
 pressed their belief in the erroneousness of this theory, but 
 not, as it seems to me, on sufficient grounds. Prof. Tobler 
 bases his objections, in the main, on the fact that many cases 
 of this special construction are no more easily explained 
 by assuming them to come from the participle in -dus than 
 from the present active participle, and further that, where 
 the accompanying noun is feminine, we should expect- 
 -endavi, -andam to produce -ande and not -ant,, the form al¬ 
 ways found. As an answer to the latter part of this statemens 
 it is relevant to remark that, as -ando, -endo, -antemf -enievt, 
 all through the law of analogy, wore away into-^w/, it hardly 
 seems a violation of this law, but rather a natural proceeding, 
 to ■^ui-andn 7 n,-anda 7 n,-endutn,-endam, together with their 
 plural forms, all in the same category, especially as they are 
 all, to a certain extent, functional equivalents in syntax. 
 Replying to the first of Tobler’s objections, I will say that I, 
 for my part, in arguing for the gerundive, do not pretend tnat 
 its admission will clear away all the difficulties; my thesis 
 simply is, that the gerundive, as well as the gerund and 
 present active participle, was operative in producing the-ant 
 constructions. As the forms were confused, it is not remark¬ 
 able that the syntax should have met with a similar fate. 
 
 state or condition existing at the time of the 
 action of the principle verb. 
 
 Et le lessierent gisant sur une table. 
 
 Joinville, ch. XXXVUI. 
 
 Pur mort le guerpissent en sabelum gisant 
 
 Charoinne le tenent sans alme enfreidissant. 
 
 Vie de S. Auban, 845. 
 
 La dame ot lors le cuer joiant. 
 
 Flore et Blanceflor, 1065. 
 
 Qu’’us fis jois capdel’ em nais 
 
 Quern te jauzent en gran doussor, 
 
 Peire Vidal, Song 22 (B.'s ed. 1857.) 
 
 The verbal in -atil is also used after interjec¬ 
 tions. 
 
 .Es-le-vus relevant 
 
 E le flot tut sechi, dunt cist vunt Deu loant. 
 
 Vie de S. Auban, 1157. 
 
 Ast vus venant de deu fideil. 
 
 Brandan’s Voyage, 580 (Rom. St. I. 573). 
 
 Es vous par le chemin errant 
 
 Mon seignor Renart le goupil. 
 
 B. 266,12. 
 
 But here, as in so many other cases, the in¬ 
 finitive may likewise be used. The nature of 
 the interjection places it in the same category 
 with verbs of seeing, beholding, etc. and of 
 course the same construction is to be expected 
 in both cases. 
 
 Ves les armes reluire: tons li cuers m’en esclaire. 
 
 Jehan Bodel, B. 310, 26. 
 
 Ay filh, tan vos vech malmenar. 
 
 Plainte de Notre Dame. 40. 
 
 What has been said in the treatment of the 
 gerund without a preposition does not by any 
 means exhaust the subject. In fact, many of 
 the cases arranged under the caption of verbs 
 of motion fall naturally and logically into a 
 more general division of the subject; but as 
 in the languages of Provence and North 
 France there was an evident predilection, now 
 to some extent abandoned, for constructing 
 the verbal in -aw/with a verb of motion, it 
 was thought preferable to consider all ex¬ 
 amples of this nature under the same heading. 
 By a more general division of the subject is 
 meant, that, irrespective of the signification or 
 use of the principal verb, the gerund may 
 play the part of an abbreviator, so to speak, 
 in the expression of thought. In addition to 
 conciseness, a greater harmony of word- 
 arrangement is attained for the sentence, since 
 a constant resort to conjunctions, relative pro¬ 
 nouns, and temporal and causal adverbs is 
 
 22 
 
The Geruudial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 avoided. All tlie Romanic languages held to 
 this mode of expression inherited from the 
 Latin, and some of them, notably the Spanish, 
 Italian and Wallachian, have given a so much 
 freer scope to it than the mother-tongue, that 
 there is hardly any relations which may not 
 be rendered by the gerund. The Teutonic 
 languages, on the other hand, seem not to 
 have fallen naturally and easily into the parti¬ 
 cipial or geruudial construction. It must have 
 been rare in Gothic, considering the few ex¬ 
 amples to be found in its extant literary mon¬ 
 uments. The Old and Middle High Ger¬ 
 man writers show little liking for it; and the 
 same may be said of Early and Middle English 
 authors. With these languages the growth has 
 been slow and occasioned probably, in great 
 measure, by the influence of the Romance 
 tongues. Its earlier and rapid growth in our 
 language is doubtless traceable to this source. 
 One who is accustomed to read the German 
 papers published in this country will notice 
 with interest how their editors and contribu¬ 
 tors, speaking both languages, allow them¬ 
 selves to be drawn by English influence into 
 a license, in this respect, which must astonish 
 in no small degree their Teutonic brothers on 
 the other side of the water. The present 
 writer can well recall his own feeling, when a 
 few years ago he took to reading Gennan- 
 American papers. Having been brought up, 
 so to speak, on the grammar and the authors 
 of the golden age of German literature, he 
 began to ask himself the question, whether 
 he had not misunderstood the teachings of his 
 grammar and instructors and whether they 
 had not taught him a fossilized language no 
 longer in vogue. And it was some time before 
 the light dawned upon him, that more recent 
 authors indulged in a freer use of the parti¬ 
 cipial construction and that German-American 
 editors were only carrying this freedom to an 
 extreme through the influence above men¬ 
 tioned.* 
 
 It has been said that the use of the verbal 
 in enables the speaker to avoid the con¬ 
 stant repetition of conjunctions and relative, 
 temporal and causal clauses, while at the same 
 
 ♦Note.—Goethe’s liberal use of the participle in * Her¬ 
 mann und Dorothea' and some others of his works was not 
 sanctioned by the custom of his predecessors and contempo¬ 
 raries. 
 
 time it gives harmony and variety to the dis¬ 
 course. This posited, we may expect to find 
 it expressing any of the numerous phases of 
 thought common to coordinate and subordi¬ 
 nate clauses ; and such is the case. It takes 
 the place of a coordinate clause, and when 
 that of a dependent, it may represent a rela¬ 
 tive sentence, an adverbial clause of time, 
 cause, manner and means, a condition, a con¬ 
 cession, or even a final clause, as has already 
 been noted under eiivoyer, ma 7 idar, etc.f 
 
 It is incumbent to make two divisions of the 
 cases that may arise : first, where the gerund 
 is used absolutely; and, second, where it 
 depends jn some way on the principal sen¬ 
 tence. In the second category the gerund may 
 bear directly or indirectly upon either the 
 subject or the object of the finite verb. The 
 latter (the object) has been partially treated 
 in discussing the construction of voir, trouver, 
 ouir, se?ttir, etc. It may be stated in general 
 terms that neither of these divisions affords 
 many examples. The absolute construction, 
 in fact, can hardly be said to be an established 
 principle of Old French syntax. This is what 
 
 fNoTE. —This implies that it is permissible to speak of 
 mood and tense as belonging to the gerund, not, it is true, as 
 inherent in it as an essential element, but indirectly through 
 its connection with the finite verb. In this way it may come 
 to have any mood, tense or number, according to the con¬ 
 struction of the sentence in which it is contained. The 
 simple tense is usually confined to the expression of past, 
 present and future time, without reference to other actions; 
 the compound to that of past anterior and future anterior 
 events, not excluding, however, perfect or completed action 
 independent of conditions. This holds generally true of the 
 principal members of the Romanic group of languages, with 
 the exception of the Wallachian, which is so free in the use 
 of its simple gerund that it seems to feel little need of a 
 compound. It may be of interest here, by way of illustrat¬ 
 ing this fact, to take the same thought and trace its expres¬ 
 sion through these several languages. For this purpose I 
 select Matthew, iii, i6. 
 
 BanridOi-i; Se 6 'h/dcvi evOv? dvefh/ dnu 
 Tov vSaro^. 
 
 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out 
 of the water. 
 
 Et quand J^sus eut ^t^baptise, il sortit incontinent de I'eau. 
 
 E Ges^, tosto che fu battezzato, sail fuor dell'acqua. 
 
 Y Jesus despues que fud bautizado, subid luego del agua. 
 
 E sendo Jesus baptizado, subio logo da agua. 
 
 Si batezandu-se lisusQ, IndatS a esitu din apS. 
 
 That is, only the Wallachian has translated the Greek 
 aorist participle by the simple form of the gerund. Many 
 other parallels might be cited from the same source. But 
 it must not be inferred that the rule is absolute. 
 
 23 
 
The Gcrundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 we should expect a priori. The absolute con¬ 
 struction was almost unknown in early Latin. 
 But a single doubtful instance is found in the 
 Laws of the Twelve Tables. The people 
 being the great conservators of language and 
 traditions, we may infer that the construction 
 had hardly worked down into the popular 
 dialect even during the classical and post 
 classical period of Roman literature. The 
 Romanic languages, deriving from the popular 
 Latin carried into the provinces by the Roman 
 soldiery, would hardly, during their formative 
 period, show any certain traces of a syntactic 
 principle which was probably foreign to their 
 primordial source. 
 
 Two forms in -ant {-e^tt) {xom voir and dir 
 are of frequent occurrence both in Old French 
 and Provengal ; and authors do not seem to 
 have had a very clear idea as to their nature, 
 that is, whether they were simple prepositions 
 or verbs. There can be no doubt but that 
 they originated in the ablative absolute of the 
 Latin, but their force as such was evidently 
 not clearly felt. I should be disposed to 
 believe that in cases like the following, where 
 they precede the noun they were felt to have 
 a kind of prepositional force such as ‘ before,’ 
 ‘ in the presence of 
 
 Que mon language ont blasme li Francois 
 Et mes chansons oiant les champenois. 
 
 Quesne de Betune, B. 221-15, 
 
 Par les dous resnes le cobra 
 Veant ses euz, puis i monta. 
 
 Gormund and Isembard, 571, 
 
 La ne passoit Sarrasins ne Escler 
 Ne I’esclinast, volant tot lebarn^, 
 
 Huon de Bordeaux, B. 186-1. 
 
 Tant que Abiaatar.soanet la offerta 
 
 de Joachim, veyent tot lo poble. 
 
 Sermons xi-xii cent. B. 23-28. 
 
 But in the following lines from the ‘ Vie de 
 Seint Auban,’ ouant and veant to have 
 
 their full verbal force; 
 
 E dist en haute voiz, les sarazins ouant ( 1 . 805) 
 
 De chastre fu menez, tuz de la curt veant (1144). 
 
 Later on, Rabelais treated oyant like any 
 other form in -ant\ “ Panurge ayant pay^ le 
 marchand, choisit de tout le troupeau un beau 
 et grand mouton et I’emportait criant et 
 bellanl, oyans tons les autres et ensemblement 
 bellans.” 
 
 This fact testifies to the persistence all along 
 of its verbal force. 
 
 In Provencal ausent and vesent were gen¬ 
 erally treated as in French ; but they might 
 also be followed by the preposition de, which 
 virtually deprived them of their verbal function 
 and they then became adverbial or preposi¬ 
 tional phrases, equivalent to : ‘ in the hearing 
 
 of ’ and ‘ in the presence of: ’ 
 
 Vesent de totz, de denlhos, 
 
 G. Barra, pro cavalier, 
 
 Estec dejos lo vert laurier, 
 
 G. de la Barra, 224. 
 
 E vay comensar sa razo 
 Ausent de totz los Sarrasis 
 ditto. 120. 
 
 Whatever be the final conclusion with refer¬ 
 ence to oyant and voyant, the circumstance of 
 their universal use both in North and South 
 France and by authors who seem to have 
 studiously avoided the absolute construction, 
 argues strongly in favor of the presumption 
 that their real nature as absolute constructions 
 was not clearly defined.* 
 
 Excepting these two crystallized expressions, 
 it would, I imagine, be a very difficult task to 
 find an unquestionable example, in the old 
 authors, of the absolute construction. For 
 neither in the ‘ Chanson de Roland,’ ‘Voyage 
 de Charlemagne,’ ‘Roman de Rou,’ La 
 Bible de Guiot de Provins,’ ‘ Vie de S. Auban,’ 
 ‘Roman d’Aquin,’ ‘ Berte aus grans pies’ 
 ‘Flore et Blanceflor,’ ‘Henri de Valencien¬ 
 nes,’ ‘Ville-Hardouin,’ the translation of ‘Guil¬ 
 laume de Tyr,’ ‘Aiol et Mirabel,’ ‘Vie de S. 
 Alexi ’ {Romania, viii), ‘De Saint Alexi (Joseph 
 Herz),’ the selections in Bartsch’s ‘ Chres- 
 tomathy,’ nor in various other shorter pieces, 
 have I been able to come upon a genuine, 
 undoubted case; while voyant and oyant in 
 some of these works are frequently met; as, 
 for instance, in‘Guillaume de Tyr,’ eleven 
 times. 
 
 The following are possibly absolute but 
 they are not clearly so and may be otherwise 
 construed without forcing the syntax. 
 
 *Notk.—I n the second volume of the Archivio Glot. Hal,, 
 p. 242,1 find an example which may be one of these same 
 constructions on Italian soil. 
 
 Ma de soi vexin alquanti, 
 
 Per visitar li logi santi, 
 
 De voiante, vegne lanto, etc. 
 
 This might represent either Deo vidente or Deo volente. 
 If the latter, it would be a case of the disappearance of 
 medial I in Italian, which would be peculiar. 
 
 24 
 
The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 La peussiez veier estur espes e grant 
 
 Maint cheval escumer, ses rednes trainant. 
 
 Roman de Rou, 3242. 
 
 Et emporta cil qui frappez estoit, le glaive 
 trainant. Joinville, ch. LII. 
 
 Et li soudans s’enfui on flum le glaive 
 trainant. ibidem, ch. LXIX. 
 
 The only example contained in Bartsch’s 
 ‘ Chrestomathy ’ is found in the selections 
 from the ‘M^moires de Philippe de Comines ’: 
 mais estant le jour un peu hauss^ et esclaircy, 
 ils trouverent que c’estoient grands chardons. 
 
 The great literary and artistic movement 
 known as the Renascence, which had been 
 ripening in Italy in the preceding century, 
 spread northward into P'ranee in the sixteenth, 
 through the intimate relations between the 
 French and Italians which sprang out of the 
 wars of Charles VIII and Louis XII. The 
 literary part of this movement consisted chiefly 
 in a recurrence to classical models ; and how 
 much the literature and languages of the 
 countries reached by this reformation were 
 affected, the most cursory examination will 
 show. It is but reasonable, therefore, to 
 suppose that the absolute construction with 
 the gerund, which had not found favor prior 
 to this period, was immensely helped on by 
 the influence of the classic languages; pos¬ 
 sibly also by the Italian, in which the con¬ 
 struction in question had been an established 
 principle of syntax from the earliest times. 
 
 But it must not be supposed that the French 
 mind has manifested the same fondness for 
 this construction as that of the other Ro¬ 
 manic peoples. On the contrary, while it has 
 now become thoroughly naturalized, French 
 writers, unlike the Spanish, Italian and Portu¬ 
 guese, seem to fall more naturally into other 
 constructions. The French and English not 
 having gone to such extremes in this respect, 
 have always in reserve a means of producing 
 fine effects. Witness the exceeding happy 
 effect of the last line of the following stanza 
 from a poem by Heber addressed to his wife : 
 
 If thou wert by my side, my love, 
 
 How fast would evening fail 
 In green Bengala’s palmy grove, 
 
 Listening the nightingale. 
 
 The gerundial construction, as has been 
 said, is a shortened device, whereby the use 
 of conjunctions and verbs in personal moods 
 
 is avoided. The precise shade of meaning of 
 the gerund is implied in, and has to be 
 gathered from, the general or logical make-up 
 of the sentence. If converted into a finite 
 mood, the conjunction requisite to make the 
 clause equivalent will be (in French) any one of 
 these : si, attendu que, vu que, puisque, parce 
 que, pendant que, etc. I do not find a conces¬ 
 sion so expressed {quoique, bie7i que), altho’ 
 the difference between condition and conces¬ 
 sion is often so slight, that one may be taken 
 for the other, as the example below cited from 
 PONSARD will show. 
 
 It is not always easy to determine the exact 
 relation implied in the gerund ; for this reason 
 it is not as clear as the personal construction, 
 and would be instinctively avoided where 
 rigid accuracy is demanded. This could be 
 especially recommended in case of the Italian 
 and Spanish, in which gerunds are sometimes 
 so loosely dragged in, that one is sorely tried 
 before getting at their meaning, to determine 
 which must frequently prove puzzling even to 
 a native. The subject may be either a noun 
 or a pronoun, which usually precedes its pred¬ 
 icate. Instances may arise, however, where 
 the position may be reversed. Occasionally 
 the subject is omitted and has to be gathered 
 from the context; but this is rare. 
 
 Si. 
 
 Parleriez-vous ainsi, C4sar ^tant present ? 
 
 Ponsard. 
 
 II y a li plus qu’il ne faut pour faire tomber, 
 le cas ^chdant, la t^te du due de Chaslin. 
 
 X. de Mont^pin. 
 
 Attendu que, vu qtie. 
 
 Certaines congregations n’etant pas recon- 
 nues par le Vatican, les d^crets pourraient 
 leur etre appliques sans peines. 
 
 Courrier des Etats-Unis. 
 
 Puisque. 
 
 Je ne dirai plus rien, le silence dans ce cas 
 etant une necessity. 
 
 Paulina de Souza. 
 
 Parce que. 
 
 II aurait dit qu’il ne pent en aucun cas fitre 
 condamne, Pacte n’ayant pas eu de temoins. 
 
 Courrier des Etats-Unis. 
 
 Et d’ailleurs j’espionnerais mal, la ruse me 
 faisant horreur. 
 
 X. de Montepin. 
 
 25 
 
The Gerundial Co7istruction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 Pendant que. 
 
 Je ne croyais pas que, moi vivant, elle ddt 
 jamais voir le Jour. 
 
 Boileau. 
 
 Aprts que. 
 
 The force of this conjunction can only be 
 rendered in French by the compound tenses 
 of the gerund; but preference is given to the 
 finite clause with aprts que or the perfect in¬ 
 finitive with aprts. 
 
 The following example is very peculiar, in 
 that the relative qui is made the subject of the 
 absolute clause. This is probably to be re¬ 
 garded as a solecism: 
 
 Je passais prds d’une frigate anglaise qui 
 m’ayant tird quelques coups, tous mes ra- 
 meurs se Jet^rent ^ I’eau. 
 
 Paul-Louis Courier. 
 
 It would not be easy to resolve this sentence 
 from Michelet, in which the gerunds are 
 possibly causal but which at the same time 
 are logically in apposition with and define 
 “accidents terribles,’’ instead of being the 
 cause of them. The latter part of the sentence 
 could have been better expressed by a per¬ 
 sonal mood ; oil les chevaux s’effrayaient, recu- 
 laient, etc. The gerund being frequently 
 resorted to in lively descriptive narration may 
 explain the freedom of its employment here : 
 On pent Juger des accidents terribles, qui 
 eurent lieu dans cette masse compacte, les 
 chevaux s’effrayant, reculant, s’dtouIfant,Jetant 
 leurs cavaliers, ou les froissant dans leurs 
 armures entre le fer et le fer. 
 
 The following sentence, too, is not well put 
 together, since it is not clear whether the ge¬ 
 rundial clause is to be construed with the pre¬ 
 ceding or succeeding member; but this comes 
 more from the faulty construction of the sen¬ 
 tence than from the clause being gerundial. 
 
 Toutefois, comme il n’est que temps de 
 sauver de I’oubli et d’une perte imminente ces 
 intdressants monuments de I’esprit et de la 
 langue de nos p^res, nos vieilles traditions 
 disparaissantdejour enjour, il y avaiturgence 
 de se mettre a I’ceuvre. 
 
 Montel et Lambert, Chants pop. 
 
 du Languedoc. 
 
 Subject omitted, the action referable to the 
 speaker. 
 
 Matrimonialjement parlant, il n’y avait plus 
 mari qui osat rdpondre de sa femme, ni amant 
 de sa maitresse. 
 
 Dumas. 
 
 Subject omitted, the agent to be gathered 
 from the context. 
 
 N’ayant eu avec lui aucun lien publique, 
 peut-^tre cette ouverture vient-elle convena- 
 blement de moi, qui ne puis ^tre atteint 
 d’aucune partialitd. 
 
 Guizot. 
 
 Grammarians have agreed to call the sub¬ 
 ject the accusative in this construction. Hav¬ 
 ing come into use at a time when the distinc¬ 
 tion between cases had been abolished, Tt 
 would be as reasonable to call it nominative 
 absolute. 
 
 The dependent gerund is a little more varied 
 in its functions than the absolute. In addition 
 to the relations assigned to this use of it, as 
 noted above, it may be concessive, instrumen¬ 
 tal, simply coincident in its action with the 
 principal verb, or take the place of an adjec¬ 
 tive clause, and be used in other ways that can 
 not be adequately defined by the ordinary 
 grammatical terminology. 
 
 Relative clause. 
 
 Proiez pur moi Jesus en ciel regnant. 
 
 Vie de S. Auban, 822, 
 
 The early French, having a much greater 
 license in regard to word-position than the 
 language of the present day, could place the 
 verbal in -afit, which represented the relative 
 clause, in almost any part of the sentence. 
 Examples. 
 
 U uns paYens haut s'escrie une mace portant. 
 
 Vie de S, Auban, 826. 
 
 L'ermite est apeM Corentin 
 
 Messe chantant don baron saint Martin. 
 
 Roman d'Aquin, 3027. 
 
 Coincident action. 
 
 Brochant lasche les rednes si feri I'alemant. 
 
 Roman de Rou, 3255. 
 
 Comcident action (co-ordinate clause). 
 
 Il monta sor son ceval et prent 
 
 S’amie devant lui baisant et acolant. 
 
 Aucasin et NicoUtc. 
 
 Co-ordinate clause (not. coincident with the 
 
 finite verb). 
 
 Alhis fut mis en la chaainne 
 
 Comme murdrier, soufTrant grant paine, 
 
 Renart le Contrefait, B. 417,21. 
 
 26 
 
The Gernndial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 Concession{?). 
 
 Deu hi tut guverne regnant en majesti. 
 
 Vie de S. Auban, 782. 
 
 Adverbial clause of time, equivalent to a past 
 anterior tense. 
 
 Quoy voiant les barons, incontenant presque 
 confus lui nianderent que tres-voulontiers ilz 
 feroient entendre la rayne de Chippre ^ faire 
 paix avecques le conte Thibault de Cham- 
 paigne. 
 
 Joinville, Hist, de S. Louis. 
 Instrument, means, etc. 
 
 Ne sai se vous sav^s che que lisant trovon. 
 
 Herman de Valenciennes. 
 
 Clers es e apris I’as en tes livres lisant. 
 
 Vie de S. Auban, 1193. 
 
 This last use of the gerund is very rare in 
 Old French, and in the modern language the 
 instrtiment, means, etc., are usually rendered 
 by the gerund with en. Three e.xamples of it 
 are found in Guillaume de Tyr, but all of 
 them are the same word, lisant-. (Liv. x, ch. 
 14; Liv. xi, chs. 13 and 30). I have not noted 
 it with any other words. Passing south to the 
 language of the Troubadours, we find it one of 
 the most common of constructions, and like¬ 
 wise the gerund more freely used to express 
 relations which in the north were rendered 
 by other constructions. 
 
 Instrument, means, etc., (Provencal). 
 
 Per qu'eu vos die c’ab aital gen 
 
 No vuihatz parlan contrastar. 
 
 R. Vidal de Bezandu. 
 
 Et el la enauset cantan e comtan a son poder. 
 
 Bib. der Troub. xlii. 
 
 As a number of examples have been col¬ 
 lected to show the ease and freedom with 
 which the writers of Provence employed the 
 gerund, they will be given here for want of a 
 better place. 
 
 E risen ela se levet e garda e vi le fol [de] 
 Peire Vidal e comeisset a cridar. 
 
 Bib. der Troub. xxii. 
 
 E ploran len preguet quel en degues pendre 
 vengansa. ditto. 
 
 Lai estet longa sazo e lai fes maintas bonas 
 cansos recordan del baizar quel avia 
 emblat. ditto. 
 
 E sai perden gazanhar 
 
 E quan sui vencutz sobrar, 
 
 Peire Vidal, song 12 (B.*s ed. 1857), 
 
 Car demandan es horn reconogutz ♦ 
 
 E responden, per que etc, 
 
 ditto, song 34, 
 
 Car sieu parlan ab un de gran valensa 
 Die un fols mot, tu fas mays de falhensa. 
 
 Bertran de Carbonel de Marcelha. 
 Aissy cum io foe ha son usi 
 Que ben usan fai so servisi. 
 
 Le Libre de Senequa. 
 
 Quar quan alcus i fai lo son 
 Chantan lo pot abreviar. 
 
 Terramagnino de Pise, Doctrina de Cort, 767. 
 Per que la reblan 
 Mas mas jontas, humilian. 
 
 G. Faidit. B. 143, 24, 
 
 Examples parallel with many of these are 
 found in the Langue d’oil, as the former 
 quotations show, but they are sporadic, one 
 might almost say, exceptional, while the lan¬ 
 guage of South France employed the gerund 
 nearly, if not quite, as freely as the Spanish 
 and Italian. A few other exceptional cases 
 are of a nature which forbids logical classifi¬ 
 cation. That immediately following, from the 
 ‘Vie de S. Auban,’ takes the place of a final 
 clause. 
 
 .u fu gent al'm^e 
 
 Atendant la parole k queu chief fust mende. 
 
 Line 581. 
 
 La voiz del segnur frainanz les cedres, e 
 frainderat li sire les cedres Libani. 
 
 Psalm xxix. B. 42,25. 
 
 Mil sumes par numbre e vus sul demandant, 
 
 Mes ke un suls i faut malade surgurnant. 
 
 Vie de S. Auban, 1189. 
 
 That is, in the last two examples the verbal in 
 -ant is connected by a conjunction with the 
 finite verb, as if it were itself a verb in a 
 personal mood. 
 
 .je n’en ferai noiant 
 
 Ne pris vo deu un denier valissant. 
 
 Huon de Bordeaux, B. 189,6. 
 
 No quier de raenz o valhan dinier. 
 
 G. de Rossilho, 7682. 
 
 This expression was common both in early 
 French and Provencal and is so strikingly 
 identical with our not inelegant slang, worth a 
 cent, as: my pony won’t gallop worth a cent, 
 that one is strongly tempted to believe in a 
 historical connection between the two. It 
 would be but another instance of the import¬ 
 ant part played by the people as conservators 
 of once well-established linguistic phenomena. 
 
 27 
 
The Gcrnndial Construction in the Romanic La^iguages. 
 
 Esdreganz esdreceras tun arc, les seremenz 
 as lignedes les quels tu parlas. 
 
 Canticum Habaccuc, B. 43,17. 
 Only in the Portuguese have I noticed this 
 duplication or gemination, so to speak, of 
 verbs for purpose of emphasis. 
 
 Vi claramente visto o lume vivo. 
 
 Os Lus. V. x 3 . 
 
 Andando vae Dom Gayfeiros 
 
 Andando a bom andar. 
 
 Hardung, Romanceiro Part. II. 8. 
 
 Andando andando toda a noite andava; 
 
 LA por madrugada que me attendava. 
 
 ditto, II. 163. 
 
 Two gerunds asyndetically used. 
 
 Fichant musant par mi ces voies 
 
 Cort audevant por eus de^oivre. 
 
 Roman de Renart, B. zoo, zi. 
 
 Issi parlant li enfant vinrent 
 
 Plorant et par les mains se tinrent. 
 
 Flore et Blanceflor, zSzy. 
 
 This mode of expression is not confined to 
 the French ; it is quite common in some of the 
 other languages. 
 
 Lo vers fo faitz al.s enblabotz 
 
 A Poivert tot jogan riden, 
 
 Peire d’Alvernhe, B. 80, 24. 
 
 Aquela gentil domna ma domna Beatris . . . 
 
 .era ben apercebuda quel moria languen 
 
 deziran per ela si la toquet piatatz. 
 
 Bib. der Troub. xxxii. 
 
 Cosi, benedicendomi cantando, 
 
 Tre volte cinse me, si com* io tacqui. 
 
 Dante, Par. xxiv,.j5i. 
 
 Que havendo tanto j A que as portas vendo 
 
 Onde o dia ^ comprido e onde breve. 
 
 Os Lus, I. 27. 
 
 Intrdnd Inte apSrfindu-se cu evantallul. 
 
 V. Alecsandri, Scora M^tei. 
 
 Compare also Shakespeare’s: So weeping 
 smiling greet I thee, my earth. 
 
 But returning from this digression, it is to 
 the modern language that we have to look for 
 the full and easy use of the gerund under the 
 second heading, that is, when not absolutely 
 employed. Here it is universally made to 
 discharge any of the following functions; (a) 
 relative or adjective clause; (b) temporal 
 clause; (c) conditional clause; (d) a conces¬ 
 sion ; (e) causal relations ; and (f) to determine 
 the modality of some finite verb of motion, 
 which last we saw to be the most common use 
 of the gerund in the early language. A few 
 examples will illustrate the modern usage. 
 
 (a) Ce n’^tait encore qu’un vague profil 
 se d^tachant rl peine sur I’azur du ciel. 
 
 Erckmann-Chatrian. 
 
 (b) Ce disant la grande Sarah [Bernhardt] 
 se pelotonna sur son petit pouf ^ peine plus 
 haut que le tapis. 
 
 L’Ev^nement (Paris Paper). 
 
 (c) Madame de Vergis, sachant le comte 
 sur ses gardes, n’avait pas osdsortir de I’hdtel 
 cette nuit. 
 
 X. de Mont^pin. 
 
 (d) Soit; mais ne disant mot, je n’en pense pas moins. 
 
 Moli^re, Tartufe, II. 2. 
 
 (e) L'homme dans son miroir se fait de grands saluts ; 
 
 Le miroir les lui rend, mais dans son ame obscure 
 II rit et salt le fond de Phomme, ^tant mercure. 
 
 V. Hugo, L'Ane, 
 
 (f) A mesure que la langue d’oc allait 
 
 s’effa^ant on voyait grandir la langue d’oil ou 
 le roman wallon. Peschier. 
 
 LA sur une charette une poutre branlante 
 Vient mena9ant de loin la foule qu'elle augmente. 
 
 Boileau. 
 
 In sentences like;— 
 
 Et la bonne femme se levant comme un res¬ 
 ort, accourut me d^barrasser de mon man- 
 teau, and ; Je me bornai donc^ prier Sperver 
 de bien se garder de faire feu sur la Peste- 
 Noire, le pr^venant que cela lui porterait 
 malheur (Erckmann-Chatrian), the gerundial 
 clause is not subordinate to that containing 
 the finite verb. The two actions are con¬ 
 secutive to each other and form the members 
 of a compound sentence, as may be seen by 
 converting the gerund into a verb of the same 
 mood and tense as the other verb; la bonne 
 femme se leva et accourut, etc. 
 
 As the Latin used the present participle 
 preceded by quasi, in the sense of as if, so the 
 Romance tongues employ the gerund after 
 words of similar import. 
 
 Au fond se tient son page, immobile et comme attendant 
 ses ordres. 
 
 V. Hugo, Ruy Bias, IV. i. 
 
 Je le consid^rais comme m’appartenant, 
 puisque je le portals au theatre. 
 
 X. de Montdpin. 
 
 Noi ne gim quasi gabbando. 
 
 Guittone d’Arezzo. 
 
 Ya estS hecho brasa, y ya estd como tem- 
 blando de frio. 
 
 G. de Castro, moc. de Cid. 
 
 Con este pensamiento gui6 Rocinante 
 hacia su aldea, el cual, casi conociendo la 
 querencia, con tanta gana comenzd A caminar. 
 
 Don Quijote, ch. 4. 
 
 28 
 
The Gerundial Construetion in the Romanic Languag^es. 
 
 Gerund with hi. 
 
 We now come to the consideration of the 
 gerund with in. The use of other prepositions 
 in Latin (ab, de, ex, etc., with the ablative; ad, 
 ob, inter, etc. witli the accusative) with the 
 gerund was not excluded, altho’ they can not 
 be said to have been as common as in. This 
 to a certain extent is implied in the fact that, 
 of all the prepositions so used, only in has 
 held its place in the Romanic tongues. That 
 other prepositions were allowable in the first 
 centuries of the growth of these languages 
 may be inferred from a few isolated examples 
 found in the early written documents. Diez 
 cites from G. Villari: Con levando ogni 
 di grandissime prede, as an instance of con in 
 old Italian. I have not observed any other 
 case of it. In the following passage from an 
 anonymous Spanish poet of the fifteenth cen¬ 
 tury, para, I presume, is to be regarded, as 
 governing burlando. 
 
 Pues el favor que vas dando 
 Es mucho para burlando 
 Y poco para de veras. 
 
 In early Provengal, per is sometimes met: 
 
 Si per chantan esjauzir 
 Pogues horn cobrar joven 
 Assatz fora convinen. 
 
 But this is exceptional rather than regular and 
 calls for no special comment. 
 
 In French, such expressions as par ce fai- 
 sant, par treuage donant, etc., are probably, as 
 has been stated, to be explained by the gerun¬ 
 dive of the Latin ; au muriant, en vostre vi- ■■ 
 vant, en estant and other similar phrases are 
 the verbal in ant substantively employed; 
 while a I'aube aparaissant, devers soleil cou- 
 chant, de soleil couchant, au soleil levant, etc., 
 are constructions formed on the analogy of the 
 Latin ad orientem solem. Practically, there¬ 
 fore, the study of the prepositional gerund 
 does not extend beyond its use with in. 
 
 Witt the Latin gerund, in generally express¬ 
 ed time, or the means, instrument, etc. : 
 
 Contrivi in quaerendo vitam atque aetatem 
 meam. Terence. 
 
 Altero utitur in narrando aliquid venuste, 
 altero in jaciendo mittendoque ridiculo. 
 
 Cicero. 
 
 Conveniet cum in dando munificum esse, 
 turn in exigendo non acerbum. Cicero. 
 
 The gerund thus used did not admit of any 
 object but a neuter pronoun. The Romanic 
 languages improved on their parent both by 
 not restricting the object and by increasing 
 the number of relations and functions per¬ 
 formed by the gerund. In all of these lan¬ 
 guages except the Wallachian, this construc¬ 
 tion has been preserved. The only relic of it 
 I have found in the Wallachian is the adverbi¬ 
 al phrase : in curindu—&n. courant, au pas de 
 course, hence, rapidly, quickly. Not having 
 access to any of the earliest monuments of 
 this language, I have not been able to ascer¬ 
 tain whether the construction in question ever 
 was a part of its syntax. 
 
 Its struggle for existence in some of the 
 sister.languages has been a hard one. The 
 Italian seems not to have taken to it at first, 
 as it is found but once in the whole of the 
 Divine Comedy (‘Purg.’ v, 45); and altho’ 
 Dante was wont to boast that his verse never 
 drove him to say anything he did not wish to 
 say, it is highly probable that he here stuck 
 in the in to make out his line. 
 
 la the ‘ Gerusalemme Liberata,’ I have 
 found in used with the gerund nine times. 
 Diez observes that the most recent authors 
 employ it oftener ;.but with all due deference 
 to the statement of the great master and 
 pioneer, I do not find this to be true. One 
 may often read on, in authors of the present 
 day, for fifty, a hundred and even two hundred 
 pages without once meeting it (some gram¬ 
 mars even pronounce the construction obso¬ 
 lete at the present day). In Silvio Pellico’s 
 ‘ Le.mie Prigioni ’ and ‘ Francesca da Rimini,’ 
 a volume of over two hundred izmo pages, I 
 have not found it at all; and he surely belongs 
 to the “neueste Schriftsteller.” But the total 
 absence of the construction here is probably 
 exceptional; and it is not pretended that Diez 
 did not feel justified in his assertion, from the 
 authors he had read. As the necessity for 
 the use of in seems to be so little felt in Ital¬ 
 ian, its employment might be as much a 
 mannerism with some authors as its absence 
 would be in others. 
 
 The relations expressed by the Italian pre¬ 
 positional gerund are not varied and, as far as 
 I have observed, are only temporal and instru¬ 
 mental. The clause in which it occurs may be 
 
 29 
 
The Gcrundial Construction in the Romatiic Languages. 
 
 turned into a subordinate sentence introduced 
 by quando, nicntre che, etc. The action of 
 the principal verb, therefore, is supervenient 
 to that of the gerund.—Pero pur va’, ed in 
 andando ascolta, that is, mentre che vai as- 
 colta. 
 
 All the examples in the ‘ Gerusalemme 
 Liberata ’ may be resolved in a similar way. 
 
 £ da tergo, in passando^ alzj la mano. iii, 29. 
 
 E il caso in narrando aggrava molto, v, 33. 
 
 E sta sospeso aspettando quale 
 
 Avri la fera lite avvenimento. vi, 55. 
 
 E in rileggendo poi le proprie note 
 
 Rig6 di belie lagrime le gote. vii, 19. 
 
 E dove in passando le vestigia ei posa, 
 
 Par che ivi scaturisca, o che germoglie. xviii, *3. 
 Stanno le schiere in rimirando intente 
 La prestezza de’ fabbri e le arte ignote. xviii, 45, 
 Suona il corriero in arrivando il corno. vii, 29. 
 
 .e non affretti 
 
 Le sue miserie in aspettando i mali. xiv, 64. 
 
 The first six of these examples are resolv¬ 
 able into temporal clauses beginning with 
 mentre che ; the seventh with quando, or do- 
 poche ; while the eighth is instrumental. 
 After stare, as in the sixth, it is more common 
 to omit the in. 
 
 .e d'alto 
 
 Stanno aspettando i miseri I'assalto. 
 
 * Gerus. Lib.,* xix, 35. 
 
 Un grosso volume di novelle toscane sta 
 preparando lo stesso autore per publicarlo in 
 Firenze. Riv. di Lett. Pop., vol. i, fasc. i. 
 
 As examples, from other sources, of hi with 
 the gerund may be given: 
 
 Fui dato in voi amando, 
 
 Ed in vostro valere. Frederigo ii, Rei di Sicilia. 
 .se I’ardor fallace 
 
 Dur6 molt’ anni in aspettando un giorno. Petrarca. 
 
 Osopiti in aspettando 
 
 i; finito il vostro bando. Ales. Manzoni. 
 
 In ripensando io tremo, 
 
 • Come dal duolo estremo 
 
 Ei fosse vinto e preso. Benedetto Menzini. 
 
 Ci punge a morte in promettendo mele. 
 
 Carlo Maria Maggi. 
 
 E in ci6 dicendo levossi la gonella e gliele 
 mostrb. Giuseppe Parini. 
 
 Imparerai solo in morendo che non in tutto 
 ubbedir dovrai al tuo padrone. 
 
 Giuseppe Taverna. 
 
 Il romito in veggendo la estupefazione e lo 
 . • "SO 
 
 scompiglio di Gianni, riteneva a gran fatica le 
 risa. . Michele Colombo. 
 
 But all the phases of thought rendered by 
 the Italian gerund with in may be, and gener¬ 
 ally are, attained by the gerund without in. 
 This accounts for the relative infrequency of 
 the former. 
 
 The old Spanish was not more partial to the 
 prepositional gerund than the early Italian. 
 Diez, speaking of the subject, says: “altere 
 Schriftsteller brauchen es noch sparsam, im 
 Cid kommt es vielleicht garnicht vor.” I pre¬ 
 sume he means by vielleicht that a categorical 
 statement would be rash in view of the circinn- 
 stance that some parts of the manuscript ha^e 
 so far proved illegible. I have carefully ex¬ 
 amined Karl Vollmoller’s text (Halle, 
 1879) and have not discovered any example 
 of the construction.—A. S. Vogelin’s ‘ Ro- 
 mancero del Cid ’ (Herders ‘ Cid,’ Heilbronn, 
 1879) contains six examples. Coming down 
 to the sixteenth century, I find Cervantes 
 using en with the gerund eighty-five times in 
 ‘Don Quijote.’ An examination of other 
 works of this period and a little later, shows 
 that the construction had now become well 
 established. 
 
 The ‘Gramatica de la Real Academia Es- 
 pafiola ’ (p. 211) sets forth as follows the rule 
 for determining the use of en with the gerund 
 in Spanish : 
 
 Si el gerundio expresa una idea anterior & 
 la contenida en la oracion principal, suele ir 
 precedido de la preposicion en, v. gr.: en 
 comiendo saldremos k paseo. 
 
 In order to test the utility of this formula, I 
 have examined several authors from Cervan¬ 
 tes down to the present time, and I must con¬ 
 fess I do not find it of the slightest practical 
 worth. For while it is true that in nine cases 
 out of ten (possibly more) en with the gerund 
 expresses an action anterior to that contained 
 in the principal sentence, it is equalTy true 
 that, for one case of the gerund with en, there 
 will be found a half dozen without en, express¬ 
 ing priority, and that, too, not only on the 
 same page but even in the same sentence. 
 Take the passage from ‘Don Quijote,’ Pt. I, 
 ch. 1: 
 
 Y tan rey seria de mi estado como cada uno 
 del suyo, y siendolo haria lo que quisiese, y 
 
The Gerundial Consfructiofi in the Romanic Lang7iages. 
 
 haciendo lo qiie quisiese haria mi gusto, y 
 haciendo mi gusto estaria contento, y en es- 
 tando uno contento no tiene mas que desear y 
 no teniendo mas que desear acabdse. 
 
 Now, no one will pretend that the idea of 
 priority is any more prominent in en estando 
 than in siendo and some others of these ger¬ 
 unds. For one could not cease to want before 
 having become content; nor could Sancho do 
 what he pleased before having become king. 
 In both cases, the predication of the gerund 
 precedes and continues along with that of the 
 finite verb. Further on, in Pt. II, ch. xxi, we 
 have a similar use and omission of en\ “El 
 cura oyendo lo cual, le dijo que atendiese k la 
 salud del alma &ntes k los gustos del cuerpo.” 
 And a few lines lower: “ En oyendo Don 
 Quijote la peticion del herido, en altas voces 
 dijo que Basilio perdia una cosa muy justa.’’ 
 
 The curate and Don Quixote both had heard 
 before they spoke ; and there is nothing in the 
 context to lead us to infer that they broke in 
 upon the speaker before he was done. The 
 action of oyendo in both instances was com¬ 
 pleted, and not in progress at the time of 
 their beginning to speak. Judging by these 
 and other examples, we may assume that 
 Cervantes, in using or omitting the en, was 
 governed solely by the position of the subject: 
 el cura oyendo, but en oyendo Don Quijote; 
 en estando uno contento; en acabando de 
 decir su glosa Don Lorenzo, etc. 
 
 If the rule of the Spanish Academy was 
 founded on the usage of the most recent 
 authors, it fares no better, as the following 
 citations from Caballero’s ‘Un Servilon y 
 un Liberalito ’ will show : 
 
 En teniendo yo veinte y cinco afios, respon- 
 dia con caraje Leopoldo, si hay entdnces 
 constitucion, he de procurar ser disputado k 
 cortes. Ch. iii. 
 
 Y abriendo el libro en el sitio donde habia 
 
 por senal una cuartilla de papel con palotes 
 .se puso k leer. Ch. v. 
 
 Here en teniendo expresses an action prior 
 to that of he de procjirar, but so, too, does 
 abriendo to se puso k leer; for the reading 
 could not begin until after the. book had been 
 opened. 
 
 Y metiendo la mano en el bolsillo sac6 un 
 pequeno envoltorio. 
 
 B. P. Galdos, ‘ La Fontana de oro,’ ch. ii. 
 
 En tocando k este punto le daban arrebatos 
 de Santa c61era, y entdnces no se la podia 
 aguantar. Ditto, ch. v. 
 
 These parallels might be increased to any 
 extent, but what has been given will suffice to 
 demonstrate the utter worthlessness of the 
 rule laid down by the grammar of the Acade- 
 rhy. If the rule is defective in this respect, on 
 the other hand there are other ways in which 
 it is equally so. It does not state, for instance 
 (what, from my observation, I believe to be 
 true), that eti is omitted when the gerund is 
 accompanied by a negative. I do not, how¬ 
 ever, lay much stress on this as holding good 
 under all circumstances, as a wider experience 
 may show the error of my belief. But of the 
 following there can be no doubt, that the 
 Spanish gerund with en does not always ex¬ 
 press completed anterior action, as the dictum 
 of the Spanish Academy would lead us to 
 infer. “ En comiendo saldremos k paseo,’’ 
 the example given by the Academy to illus¬ 
 trate its rule, means: after we shall have 
 eaten, we shall go out to walk. That is, the 
 action of en comiendo is past and completed 
 before that of saldremos begins. But any 
 number of examples might be adduced to 
 show that the prepositional gerund frequently 
 expresses an action which is coincident with 
 that of the principal verb and may dr may not 
 continue after the completion of the action of 
 the latter. 
 
 Que no serA muerte, 
 
 Si en viendote muero. Jorge de Montemayor. 
 
 Y hoy en durmiendo un marido 
 
 Halla A su lado otro Adan. 
 
 F. Gomez de Quevedo y Villegas. 
 
 En siendo gusto, sef.ora, 
 
 No importa que no sea bueno. Agustin Mureto. 
 
 The first two of these examples rhay be inter¬ 
 preted strictly in accordance with the Acade¬ 
 my ; but it is more in harmony with the 
 thought to take them to mean: whe^t or while 
 seeing, sleeping. About the third there can 
 be no dispute; it is not covered by the rule.— 
 The relations expressed by the Spanish 
 gerund with en are temporal, shading off 
 sometimes into conditional and causal. The 
 examples already given will suffice as illustra¬ 
 tions. In some of the most recent authors 
 
The Gernndial Construction in the Romanic Lan^tages. 
 
 there seems to be a growing tendency to 
 abandon the use of en altogether. 
 
 Of the Portuguese prepositional gerund 
 there is nothing very special to say that has 
 not already been covered by the remarks on 
 the Spanish. Not having at hand any of the 
 earliest literary documents, I have not been 
 able to form any opinion relative to its histori¬ 
 cal growth. Em is employed four times in 
 the ‘Lusiads’; i, 8 ; iii, 136; v, 8; vii, 25. In 
 each case it is equivalent to an adverbial 
 clause of time. The whole of Hardung’s 
 ‘ Romanceiro Portugues ’ (600 pages) offers but 
 three examples : i, pp. 171 and 203, and ii, 243; 
 the first two are temporal, the third temporal 
 or conditional. Authors of the present day 
 use the construction very sparingly; and the 
 attempt to formulate a rule for its use would 
 prove as abortive as in the case of the Spanish. 
 The two languages do not here differ material¬ 
 ly in their syntax, as would naturally be ex¬ 
 pected from their close affinity to each other. 
 —The Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese do 
 not show such a decided preference for the 
 prepositional gerund as the languages of the 
 north-western Romance territory. There it 
 became naturalized in the first centuries of 
 their development and was even with them of 
 more frequent occurrence than it has ever 
 been with the sister languages of the south 
 and south-east. 
 
 But altho’ the early French and Provencal 
 use of the gerund with eri may be pronounced 
 extensive as compared with the other lan¬ 
 guages, it is very rare as compared with 
 modern French and Proven9al. In ‘Girart 
 de Rossilho,’ a poem of nine thousand lines, I 
 find en used but twice; while in Aubanel’s 
 ‘La Miougrans Entre-Douberto ’ and Mis¬ 
 tral’s ‘ Mireio,’two modern poems contain¬ 
 ing about the same amount of matter, the 
 same construction occurs one hundred and six 
 times. I have counted in one of Emile Zola’s 
 latest novels, of 524 pages, i2mo, five hundred 
 and twenty two examples; that is, nearly once 
 on a page. This is probably a greater num¬ 
 ber of times than the prepositional gerund can 
 be found in the whole of French literature 
 from the ninth to the fourteenth century. The 
 following table will be, to one who is acquaint¬ 
 ed with the works it embraces, a sufficient 
 
 proof of the probability of this statement. 
 
 ‘ Chiinson de Roland,’ 3 times; ‘Voyage de 
 Charlemagne,’5 t. ; ‘Flore et Blancefior,’ 10 
 t.; ‘ Les Joies de Nostre Dame’ {Zeit. f. R. 
 Phil., iii), 2 t.; ‘ Vie de Seint Auban,’ 5 t.; ‘ La 
 Vie de Saint Alexi ’ {Romania, viii), o t.; 
 
 ‘ Roman de Rou ’ (Andresen, Theil i und ii), 
 5 t.; ‘ Roman d’Aquin,’ 2 t. ; ‘ Berte aus grans 
 pi 4 s,’ 9 t.; ‘ Hist, de S. Louis ’ (Joinville), 12 
 t.; ‘ Hist, de I’empereur Henri ’ (H. de Valen¬ 
 ciennes), 8 t. ; ‘ Conqueste de Constantinoble ’ 
 (Villehardouin), o t.; ‘ Translation of Guil¬ 
 laume de Tyr,’ 6t. ; ‘ Aiol et Mirabel,’ 10 t.; 
 
 ‘ Guiot de Provins,’ o t. 
 
 1 have not thought it necessary to carry this 
 investigation so far in Provencal, as the follow¬ 
 ing, together with my own general observation, 
 convinced me that the proportion was about 
 the same. ‘Bib. der Troubadours,’ 10 times; 
 ‘Four Card. Virtues’ (Daude de Pradas), i 
 t.; ‘ Girart de Rossilho,’ 2 t.; ‘ Peire Vidal’s 
 ‘ Songs,’ 2 t. 
 
 The frequency, infrequency or total want of 
 the construction in an author is traceable, of 
 course, to psychological causes. That one 
 writer should employ it oftener, or less often, 
 than another, only shows that it was a part of 
 his mental equipment, and the expression of 
 his thoughts would naturally be through the 
 most familiar, most habitual channel—in the 
 jargon of the new philosophy, along the line 
 of least resistance. If Joinville, for instance, 
 uses en with the gerund twelve times, and 
 Villehardouin when doing about the same 
 amount of writing does not employ it at all, 
 this only proves that with the one it was a 
 conscious part of his mode of thought, while 
 the thoughts of the other sought different 
 paths of outlet, because more accustomed to 
 run in them. All men have words and 
 ways of combining them into sentences 
 peculiar to themselves; and originality of 
 style is proportional to the amount of diver¬ 
 gence from the ordinary formularies of 
 thought. The discrepancy, therefore, be¬ 
 tween these two authors, in the respects just 
 mentioned, proves nothing more than the fact 
 itself—namely, the discrepancy and the cause 
 thereof. Nothing further can he educed from 
 it, and this should make us chary in setting 
 too high a value on statistical methods in 
 
 32 
 
The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 philology, a thing which we are all more or 
 less prone to do. 
 
 If the prepositional gerund of the old French 
 compares badly with the modern usage in 
 point of frequency, it does also in variety. 
 One cannot but be struck with this. It forced 
 itself upon me almost at the \'ery outset of 
 my investigations. The want of variety is 
 seen in this, that with many authors en is used 
 only in certain combinations and after certain 
 verbs, that is, they use en only in a few to 
 them apparently fixed or stereotyped ex¬ 
 pressions. The most common of these are: 
 en dormant, en riant, en pleurant and some 
 others, especially after verba declarandi. 
 This may be illustrated by citing, in brief, all 
 the examples of several works.—' Chanson de 
 Roland,’ 3 times, as follows: en riant I’ad dit 
 (619), dist en riant (862), il la prent en gisant 
 (2523).—‘Flore et Blanceflor,’ 10 times: en 
 plorant li respont (210), respont en baisant 
 (603), en lisant cou racontoient (664), en plorant 
 prist a parler (716), respont en plorant (2276), 
 en dormillant li respondi (2529), en baisant se 
 sont rendormi (2554), respont en plorant (2795), 
 tot en plorant (2986), en riant icon li dient 
 (3172).—‘ Berte aus grans pi6s,’ 9 times: en 
 plorant (208), tout en plorant (521), e 7 i fuiant 
 (844), tout e 7 i plorant (1252), en dormant li 
 sambloit (1678), plorant (2535), en plorant 
 (2452), en alant (2754), en plorant (3247).— 
 JoiNviLLE ‘Hist.de S. Louis,’ (de Wailly’s 
 edition) 12 times: en plourant (207), distrent e 7 i 
 riant (298), gardast en mangant (430), comme 
 en couroussant (439), en ce faisant (494), tout en 
 plorant (556), souflfre en li gardant (560), diSt en 
 riant (673), me fu avis en dormant (731) appela 
 en s’aide e 7 i disant (756), e 7 i regardant rendi 
 s’orison (757), dist e 7 i profetizant (794).—‘ Vie 
 de Seint Auban,’5 times: e 7 i murant jeta un 
 cri (249), e 7 i suspirant dit (382), dist e 7 i reschis- 
 nant (753), en plurant a dit (868), s’a dit en 
 suspirant (1115)-—‘Roman de Rou ’ (Andre- 
 SEN, i, ii), 4 times; en fuiant fu ocis (563), e 7 i 
 dormant (909), dist en riant (1573), en plurant 
 (1824). 
 
 This will suffice to give an idea of the phe¬ 
 nomenon above mentioned, which is very 
 marked in ‘ Flore et Blanceflor ’ and ‘ Berte 
 aus grans pi^s.’ In most other writers no 
 such decided tendency is manifest; for while 
 
 the above often recurring expressions are 
 found, other examples sufficiently demonstrate 
 that the writers used en with the gerund in 
 accordance with a general principle of syntax. 
 
 Examples: ‘Guillaume de Tyr’ (P. Paris’s 
 edition), 6 times: s’escusa en jurant (p. 83), 
 s’en va en aguisant (190), estoit apareuz en 
 dormant (208), en languissant (210), salua e 7 i 
 inclinant (329), leur sembloit en dormant (418). 
 —‘ Voyage de Charlemagne,’ 5 times : dist e 7 t 
 riant (278), esguardant cum e 7 i riant (360), en 
 bruslant (479), e 7 i turnant (480), en reversant 
 (481).—‘ Henri de Valenciennes,’ 8 times : en 
 preservant (ch. i), escriant (8), e 7 i fuiant (8), 
 en plovrant (9) e 7 t escriant (25), e 7 i fuiant (25), 
 ett respondant (38), en sozriant (38). 
 
 What now is the force of the prepositional 
 gerund as used at this period of the growth of 
 the language? The majority of the above ex¬ 
 amples, and numerous others, teach us that its 
 most common function consisted in taking the 
 place of an adverbial clause of time, always, 
 therefore, modifying, or affecting in some 
 way, the action of the principal verb. The 
 gerund’s action in such cases is coincident 
 with that of this verb, but the latter is always 
 incidental to the former. In addition to this, 
 the gerund also expressed the mea 7 is, the in- 
 stru 7 ne 7 tt and occasionally the 7 na 7 tner. I say 
 occasionally, because I have noticed but one 
 rather doubtful instance of 7 /ian 7 ter. 
 
 Means, instrument: Et en ce faisant il occi- 
 oient les lyons de leur saietes. 
 
 Joinville, ch. xcvi. 
 
 S’cle tant fait que vos rie 
 
 En riant vos decevra. B. 334, ji. 
 
 Dont m’est il bien avis 
 
 baisant me traTstes. ‘Blonde! de Neele,* B, 226, 3. 
 
 Par joie d'amors vraie 
 
 Sui en baisant mors. Ditto, 225, 4. 
 
 En belHant I'ourent pass^, 
 
 Ne I'aveient mie esgard^. * Roman de Ron/ B. 112, 35. 
 
 Et pour itant aprendre a harper 
 
 Et ma dame en chantant loer. 
 
 .Guil. de Machau, B. 408, 35. 
 
 Manner: 
 
 '‘^ Car la grant hache Pataint en rechipant. 
 
 * Roman d’Aquin,* 1594. 
 
 These (thne, i 77 str 7 i 7 )ient, and 7 fian 7 ter) are 
 the regular and almost exclusive offices dis¬ 
 charged by the gerund with e 7 i, during the 
 first centuries of the development of the lan- 
 
 3.^ 
 
The Gerundial Cofisfruction in the Romanic Languages. 
 
 guage. The rule for its use should be, that , 
 the actions of both verbs be performed by the | 
 same agent: il dit en pleura 7 it \ but there are 
 numerous exceptions to this, which are per¬ 
 fectly logical and always justifiable, provided 
 no ambiguity arises from the violation of the 
 rule. 
 
 Maint hume enmi lur veie mort tut estendu, 
 
 A maint uni en dormant le chief sevre de bu. 
 
 ‘ Roman de Rou/ 909. 
 
 En fuiant li ont fait les ronces maint escroe 
 
 De sa robe et la dame entour li la renoe. ' 
 
 * Berte aus grans pi-s/ 844. 
 
 II se misent a la fuite et li nostre les ochi- 
 oient en fuiant. H. de Valenciennes, ch. viii. 
 
 Such sentences are lucid enough and no 
 reasonable objection can be raised to them ; [ 
 but a construction like the following squints | 
 (as the French say) and barely escapes obscuri¬ 
 ty by the thought itself and not by the syntax 
 of the sentence. j 
 
 Et des oiseaus et des bestes sauvages 
 Faisoient douter les orguilleus corages 
 En escoutant le doulz son de sa lire. 
 
 Guil. de Machau, B. 4x0, 13. 
 
 The gerund is sometimes loosely thrown 
 in where other constructions would be a more 
 natural expression of the thought, as seen 
 when analyzed. 
 
 Les letres de fin or estoient 
 Et en lisani cou racontoient. 
 
 ‘ Flore et Blanceflor/ 644. 
 
 Tresk’ as espaules sans fosete, 
 
 Ounie et grosse en avalant. 
 
 Adam de la Halle, B. 377, 23. 
 
 Here the meaning is : the letters, when read, 
 or on being read, recounted this ; and second¬ 
 ly, the neck was ounie et devenait grosse eti 
 avalant, since the poet desired evidently to 
 depict a neck that tapered from the shoulders 
 upward. 
 
 Again, e 7 i is occasionally omitted, where, 
 by general usage, it ought to have been em¬ 
 ployed : 
 
 Or vous gisds, biax pere, bien i venr^s dormant. 
 
 H. de Valenciennes, B. 87, 14. 
 Fortment plurant dist as freres. 
 
 * Brandans Seefahrt,' 333. 
 
 Dist chascun lermant: las pur quei nasqui ? 
 
 ‘Vie de Seint Auban,* 1503. 
 
 On the other hand, it is sometimes found 
 where universal custom has sanctioned its 
 omission : 
 
 ,'-.4 
 
 A genousle trouvai ourant 
 A jointes mains et en plourant. 
 
 ‘Jehan Bodel,’ B. 313, 31. 
 
 Rut these examples are exceptional and are 
 probably confined to poetry, as I have not 
 observed any such in prose. The Provencal 
 usage does not differ essentially from the 
 P'rench, as might be presumed. Only in the 
 former there does not seem to have existed 
 the same tendency to the use of the crystallized 
 expressions so notable in the latter. 
 
 Instrument, means ; 
 
 Complir si pot en pessan 
 
 Per tot home qu’en a talan. Daude de Pradas. 
 
 Mils aten horn en atenden, 
 
 Motas vetz no fa en corren. Le Libre de Senequa. 
 
 E vau conortan 
 Mon cor en chantan 
 
 So que no cugei far ogan. G. Faidit, B. 141. 7. 
 
 Temporal: 
 
 En chantan m’aven a membrar 
 
 So qn'eJ cug chantan oblidar. * 
 
 Folquet de Marseille, B. 119. 6. 
 
 Lo payre sanct en donan la crosada 
 Lay vay premier coma veray pastor. 
 
 Pasiorela, B. 404. 28, 
 
 We find also in Provencal the same depar¬ 
 ture occasionally from the common usage, 
 which constructs the gerund without en with 
 to fi 7 id and verbs of motion. 
 
 Qu'enans fui trobatz en dormen 
 
 Sabre chevau. Guillem IX, Songs. 
 
 L'us ab fols motz, I’autres vay en fenhen 
 
 Qu’el fay cobias naturalmen e be. 
 
 Bertran Carbonel de Marcelha. 
 Adonc se son armatz et de la vila 
 Son salitz frapan et aisso en cridan. 
 
 ‘ Chanson de la Croisade.' 
 
 From what now has been said and shown, a 
 sufficiently definite judgment may be formed 
 regarding the early use of the prepositional 
 gerund in Provencal and French. The 
 modern languages, having widened its sphere 
 of usefulness to the enormous extent above 
 indicated, have naturally given , to it more 
 varied functions to discharge, as we shall see. 
 
 temporal, the modern French gerund 
 with en may express : 
 
 A. I. An action anterior to and completed 
 before that of the principal verb ; as, Eti ap- 
 prenant I’issue de I’entreprise la reine Hor- 
 tense accourut en France. Guizot. 
 
 Une personne qui me plaisait et (jui s’est re- 
 
The Gcriindial Constructioti hi the Romanic Languages. 
 
 tir^e en apprenant qiie nion p^re avail Iaiss 4 
 plus de dettes qiie de capital. George Sand. 
 
 2. The action may begin before and end 
 with that of the principal verb ; as, Si I’Aimer 
 ^pique fut fait prisonnier par eu.x, rAimer his- 
 torique trouva la mort en les combattant. 
 
 Gaston Paris. 
 
 Le R^v. Miller, doyen de 1 ’university de 
 mydecine et de chirurgie de Philadelphie a 
 yty arrety dimanche en allant a Pyglise. 
 
 Courrier des Etats- Unis. 
 
 3. Its action may begin before and continue 
 after that of the, finite verb; as, Le comte de 
 Niedeck se couche en claquant des dents. 
 
 Erckmann-Chatrian. 
 
 II entra en tenant ft la main quelques papiers. 
 
 X. de Montypin. 
 
 4. The action of both verbs may begin at 
 
 the same time; as, Pierre avail tuy sa mat-; 
 tresse et s’ytait enfui en emjx)ftant la petite 
 fille. X. de Montypin. 
 
 Elle a appeiy M. Greluche et lui a dit en lui 
 montrant une avant-sedne; Tiens: voil^ ma- 
 dame de Sartorys. Froufrou, ii, 2. 
 
 5. The gerund’s action may begin after that 
 of the principal verb ; as, 
 
 Mais surtout quand la brise 
 Me touche en voltigeant, 
 
 La nuit j’aime Ctre assise, 
 
 Etre assise en songeant. V, Hugo. 
 
 II lira les dossiers du tiroir et les lut at- 
 tentivement Pun apr^s I’autre en prenant des 
 notes. X. de Montypin. 
 
 .Sometimes the temporal gerund shades off 
 partially into an adverb of manner: Je ne 
 viens qu’en passant, vous voyez, je suis en 
 grande toilette. A. de Musset. 
 
 L’historien recueillit en passant des dytails 
 et des tymoignages. Villemain. 
 
 B. When expressing causal, or instrument¬ 
 al relations, the action of the prepositional 
 gerund always precedes that of the finite verb. 
 This necessarily follows from the fact that the 
 latter is but the result of the former, the two 
 actions standing to each other in the relation 
 of cause and effect: M. Constans pouvait 
 surmonter cette difficulty, en soumettant au 
 cabinet une liste des ytablissements qu’il se 
 proposait de fermer. 
 
 Courrier des Etats- Unis. 
 
 I Vous faites une si vive impression sur lui 
 j que j’ai voulu compiyter son bonheur en le 
 rapprochant de son idole. Balzac. 
 
 In such cases the gerund is objective in 
 character. Where the cause is subjective, it 
 j becomes the motive for the action of the 
 I principal verb, and the gerund without en is 
 j then used ; as, N’entendant rien aux discus¬ 
 sions politiques, j’ai repris Pytat militafre. 
 
 Scribe. 
 
 Sentences are occasionally crossed, whose 
 cast is not distinctly definable, the gerund 
 being capable of temporal, or instrumental, 
 interpretation : En suivant Sperver, qui mon- 
 tait Pescalier d’un pas rapide, je pus me con- 
 vaincre que le chateau Niedecle myritait sa 
 ryputation. Erckmann-Chatrian. 
 
 C. The gerund with en expresses a conces¬ 
 sion. The actions of the two verbs are then 
 coincident. 
 
 Coligny dans son coeur a son prince fid’ele 
 
 Aimait toujours la France en combattant contre elle.. 
 
 Voltaire. 
 
 The concession may be strengthened by the 
 addition of tout, or mime : Napoiyon fut ac- 
 cueilli par les acclamations du peuple qui, 
 tout en maudissant la conscription . . . . . . 
 
 voyait en lui.le vaillant dyfenseur du 
 
 sol national. Thiers. 
 
 Myme en supposant qu’on organise la vente 
 gynyrale du clergy, la guerre ne pouvait faire 
 autrement que de mettre le royaume d’ltalie, 
 etc. Chevalier. 
 
 And the same thing is accomplished by con¬ 
 trast, as it were; that is, by using in the 
 principal sentence one of the adverbs toutefois, 
 cependant, niannwins, just as tho’ a correla¬ 
 tive {quoique, bien que) had been used in the 
 preceding clause. 
 
 Cet ^mour en naissant est toutefois extr'me. 
 
 Corneille. 
 
 Mais Sir Robert, en proclamant la complete 
 indypendance de PEspagne dans le choix du 
 mari de la reine, persiste cependant au fond ft 
 en exclure les princes fran9ais. Guizot. 
 
 D. The gerund with en may take the place 
 of a conditional clause, upon whose realization 
 depends the action of the principal verb. Its 
 action, therefore, is contingently anterior to 
 the latter. 
 
The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Lanf^iages. 
 
 En sondanr ccs cachots, en comptant ces victimes, 
 
 Ils diront: £lle aussi mise u mort pour ses crimes. 
 
 C. Delavigne. 
 
 Parmi les formations ^ radical latin que le 
 suffixe ati a produites en roumain {^en admet- 
 tant que au soit rest 4 intact), je n’en trouve 
 que deux. Romania, ix, 107. 
 
 This becomes a very convenient way of ex¬ 
 pressing a condition, when it is desired to 
 throw in a parenthetical condition after the 
 conjunction si\ Et quisait si, en d^pensant 
 un million sur cette lande, on n’en fera pas 
 line affaire qui aura au bout du compte une 
 tournure assez honorable? Fr^d^ric Soulid. 
 
 E. Lastly, the gerund with en may serve to 
 modify the action of the principal verb. 
 This, strictly speaking, is only true of verbs 
 of motion, and only then, when the manner of 
 the movement is defined or limited by the ger¬ 
 und. 
 
 Les voici qui viennent en trottinant devant 
 leur m^re. Pylodet’s ‘ Fr. Reader.’ 
 
 II vient en rampant mettre aux pieds de son 
 maitre son courage, sa force et ses talents. 
 
 Buffon. 
 
 Here en trottinant describes the manner of 
 coming of the little chickens, and eti rampant 
 that of the coming of the dog, and I think we 
 should distinguish the gerund as so used from 
 its use in such sentences as: Le baron s’avan- 
 ga jusqu’^ la porte en souriant malicieusement. 
 
 E. About. 
 
 En souriant does not affect the action of 
 s'avanga but is merely a concomitant action ; 
 whereas, if we substituted for it some such 
 words as en bronchant, en chancelant, they 
 would become a part of the movement ex¬ 
 pressed by s'avanqa and hence be strictly 
 adverbs of manner. 
 
 When used after ttre, the prepositional ger¬ 
 und becomes the real predicate of the 
 sentence; as, Ils se plaignaient que leurs fati¬ 
 gues eussent 4 t 4 en augmentant. S 4 gur. 
 
 As regards the subject of the gerund with 
 c«, the same usage prevails at the present 
 day as in the early language; both actions 
 are, for the most, performed by the subject of 
 the finite verb, as the examples above quoted 
 show. The departures from this general rule 
 are of the same character as those already 
 noted. 
 
 Subject in Dative : Dieu nous envoie souvent 
 le bien en dormant; envoie cela ^ ta mtire et 
 
 assure-la que j’aurai soin d’elle et de toi. 
 
 Fr^d^ric II, Roi de Prusse. 
 
 No subject expressed ; 
 
 La fortune vient en dormant, ce qui prouve 
 que ce n’est qu’un reve. 
 
 Tintamarre, Aug. 1880. 
 
 The latter sentence may be objected to on 
 the ground of its not being logically con¬ 
 structed, since fortune does not come while 
 asleep ; but we recognize at first sight that the 
 sentence means: la fortune nous vient en dor¬ 
 mant, and hence no doubt is left in the mind. 
 The real objection to this exceptional use of 
 the gerund is where the sentence is so loosely 
 constructed as to leave it doubtful whether 
 the gerund refers to the subject of the princi¬ 
 pal verb, or to its object. Instance the two 
 following sentences: 
 
 Vienne la voile qui t’emm^ne en souriant je 
 te verrai partir. A. de Musset. 
 
 En payant pourriez-vous me donner une 
 assiette de soupe et un coin pour dormir dans 
 ce hangar? V. Hugo. 
 
 Where several gerunds follow each other in 
 the same sentence, en is used, as a rule, with 
 them all, if they are separated from each other 
 by intervening words ; as. Tout en regardant 
 les boutiques, en paraissant admirer les objets 
 d’art et en souriant aux jolies femmes, le 
 baron creusait son probl^me. 
 
 X. de Mont 4 pin. 
 
 But where the gerunds follow each other in 
 immediate succession, the preposition gener¬ 
 ally is omitted with all but the first. Euphony 
 doubtless is the governing principle in both 
 instances. 
 
 Une poulette jeune et sans experience, 
 
 En trottant, cloquetant, grattant, 
 
 Se trouve, je ne sais comment. 
 
 Fort loin du poulailler, berceau de son enfance. 
 
 Florian. 
 
 C’est ainsi qu’il apprend ^ sentir la pesan- 
 teur, etc, ...<?« regardant, palpant, 4 coutant, 
 surtout en comparant la vue au toucher. 
 
 J.-j. Rousseau. 
 
 The amount of modern Provencal literature 
 to which I have access is small, but I believe it 
 is enough to justify me in the assertion that 
 the language employs en with the gerund 
 about as in French proper. The accompany¬ 
 ing French translations regard do not once 
 in twenty times resort to any other construc¬ 
 tion. The citation, therefore, of examples is 
 unnecessary. 
 
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