Czech prechodnik

[Michael Trittipo]

On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 7:38 AM, Patrick Corness <pjcorness at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I would like to know colleagues' views on how they refer in English to the
> category in Czech grammar termed prechodnik. I would call it the gerund and
> Janda and Townsend's Czech Grammar uses this term. However, Czech linguists
> writing in English generally insist on calling it the "transgressive" though
> I doubt if this term is widely understood. If you have interests in Czech I
> would be most grateful for your view. Thanks.

I'd say it depends on who the audience is and what the purpose: to
help Czech speakers learn English, or English speakers learn Czech, or
a linguistics audience compare přechodníky to other languages'
verbals.

For English-speaking learners of Czech, I wouldn't have called a
přechodník a gerund, because many students have been taught to
distinguish gerunds from participles.  By that distinction, "gerund"
is only for "-ing" forms when used as nouns (and sometimes called
"verbal nouns"); "participle" is for "-ing' forms when used as
adjectives. So for an audience used to traditional English grammar
terms and the distinctions they enable, I would more likely call
přechodníky participles, and would use "gerund" only for dějová jména
(substantiva verbální - čtení, spaní, etc.).  A more recent tendency
has been to call them both simply the "-ing" form and then note that
form's differing uses.

That said, I agree that "transgressive" is not likely to be useful to
any English-speaking learners of Czech, because it won't mean anything
to them.  If they're going to learn a new term, that term might as
well be přechodník itself, so they can think about Czech grammar in
Czech terms.  Maybe for other audiences.  Just my two cents worth.

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