GO + present participle

[Benjamin Torbert]

Hey y'all, is there an name for this?  (IANA real syntactician).

1) We went sledding.
2) They went bowling.
3) Let's go shopping.

Someone asked me what this is.  I said I wasn't sure, but my initial
instinct was that *go* is being used as an linking verb, and the participle
is acting as an adjectival subject complement.  After all, *go* can be used
as a linking verb with an adjective phrase as a subject complement.

4) I went crazy in sixth grade.
5) Reagan went senile.
6) I go nuts when I see Reese Witherspoon.

I think this construction may be restricted to states of mind.  Thus,

6) *Lebron James went tall in sixth grade.
7) *Reese went pretty during college.

There are probably some other selectional restrictions of which I'm not
aware.

I think the participle usually has to be used intransitively.  So these are
good:

8) We went shopping.
9) We went skiing.

And these aren't:

10) *I went watching birds. (monotrasitive)
11) *I went shooting deer. (monotransitive)
12) *Let's go tipping cows. (monotransitive)
13) *She went telling us stories again. (ditransitive)

(10) through (13) all feel "pretty much mostly not well-formed" to me,
although perhaps not 100% ungrammatical.  (12) can be fixed by
incorporating the direct object into the participle itself:

14) Let's go cow-tipping.
15) Let's go apple-picking.

But, there are apparently intransitive and optionally-transitive verbs that
cannot participate in the structure.  I think the semantics of the
participle dictate that the action has to be something like [+ activity].
So these are no good.

16) *Fafner went sleeping.
17) *Cookie Monster went eating.
18) *Elizabeth Kübler-Ross went dying.

And sometimes, I'm not sure.

19) ? Ted Bundy went killing again.

(19) smells halfway okay to me; it seems to have an understood direct
object, *people*.  And (20) is counter-evidence for the participle having
to be used intransitively:

20) Hitler went invading countries all over Europe.

Anyway, is there any literature on this?

Benjamin Torbert
UM-Saint Louis

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