From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 17740
Date: 2003-01-18
----- Original Message -----
From: <celteuskara@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 2:38 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] gerund
> I use it for both aspects, and even in normal nouns "You can't get
> sumthin for nothin"
But in some Englishes buildin' (pres.part., gerund and noun alike) contrasts with sumthink, nothink and anythink. The origin of pres.part. -ing is still a bit unclear in detail, but it goes without saying that at some point -end and -ing fell together, and a pronunciation like modern [-In] or [-&n] is a likely neutralisation point for the two (despite the fact that the explicit spelling <-in'> for <-ing> was not common before the 18th century.
Piotr