Use of term "gerund" (Russian)

[Cori Weiner]

I agree with that student that Slavic -- or at least Russian -- is  
somewhat different from Latin and other romance languages in its  
treatment of the term gerund.

In Latin, French and English, a gerund is either in a certain case  
(Latin : ambulando is in the ablative case) or accompanied by a   
preposition (French: en marchant or English:  by walking).  Case  
endings and prepositions are used for nouns in these languages,  
respectively.In Russian, gerunds are not inflected nor can they  
follow a preposition, and thus less nouny.

My unscholarly guess as to why the term gerund may be used  
nonetheless is because true verbal nouns don't exist to my knowledge  
in Russian.  Although not a native speaker, I'd use an infinitive or  
inflected form of the verb to express the meaning of a gerund in  
English.  Slavic grammarians certainly could have been creative in  
renaming the Russian verbal adverbs something else -- I for one would  
have appreciated this too when learning Russian.  But the only terms  
I know of in the alleged source language, Latin, are gerunds,  
gerundives and participles.  None of them really fit.  Conclusion: I  
agree with Alina; it's just a bad calque.

And of course the answer could be simpler: maybe someone just  
translated the term deeprichastiia incorrectly into English. That  
could be tested if someone had handy a Latin grammar book in Russian  
to see if Latin gerunds were called deeprichastiia or gerundiia.

Hope that helps.
Cori


On Sep 4, 2006, at 2:26 PM, Nicole Monnier wrote:

> Dear SEELANGStsy,
>
> Twice in the past week, I've had two students ask about the use of  
> the term
> "gerund" to refer to Russian verbal adverbs (deeprichastiia), and  
> not verbal
> nouns, as is common in English. Not being a linguist (!), I thought  
> I would
> post the second - and testier - of these queries to the list.
>
>> I am not sure you will have the answer to this question as it is a  
>> rather odd
>> and perhaps overly finicky question, but it is a matter that has  
>> irritated me
>> for the better part of a year, thus I ask it all the same. Why do  
>> Slavonic
>> linguists and pedagogues choose to stand apart from seemingly all  
>> other
>> linguists and hundreds of years of tradition in using the term  
>> 'gerund' to
>> refer to verbal adverbs rather than the verbal nouns? I initially  
>> thought it
>> was simply an anomaly of the third-year textbook, then I saw it in  
>> a few
>> articles, and finally I went back and looked through various  
>> Russian grammars
>> and found that all of those which used the term 'gerund' used it  
>> to refer to
>> verbal adverbs. In contrast to this, every time I have encounter  
>> the term
>> outside the realm of Slavonic languages it has referred to verbal  
>> nouns
>> (indeed I always found it slightly humorous that the word 'gerund'  
>> was itself
>> derived from a gerund). Admittedly, in English the situation is  
>> somewhat
>> confused by the use of the -ing suffix for both verbal nouns and  
>> verbal
>> adverbs (compare: 'Ringing the doorbell, he noticed the door was  
>> open.' and
>> 'The ringing of the bell drove the man insane.'), and I don't  
>> fully understand
>> why my Old English textbook uses the term 'inflected infinitive'  
>> in addition
>> to 'gerund' to refer to verbal nouns, but at least 'gerund' is  
>> used properly.
>> Why can't Slavicists at least do the same?
>
> Best,
>
> Nicole
>
>
> ****************************
> Dr. Nicole Monnier
> Assistant Professor of Instruction
> Director of Undergraduate Studies (Russian)
> German & Russian Studies
> 415 GCB
> University of Missouri
> Columbia, MO 65211
>
> phone: 573.882.3370
>
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Cori Weiner
Center for English Language & Orientation Programs
Boston University
phone: 617-353-7902
fax: 617-353-6195
web: www.bu.edu/celop
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