Re: Re[2]: [tied] French Gerund v. Participle

On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:34:50 -0800 (PST), Glen wrote:

>
>Kim:
>> Glen, the original assertion (more of an obiter dictum, but never
>> mind) was that the French participial construction, although common in
>> writing, is rarely used in speech. You challenge this on the basis of
>> Canadian French, of which indeed I have no knowledge, so let me
>> qualify the claim by restricting it to metropolitan French.

Reread the above, the first sentence in particular.

>What does "metropolitan French" mean?

The French of France. No offence intended to Winnipeg, Vancouver or
any other metropolis.

>> Now what you are trying to prove with the above statistics from Google
>> I cannot guess.
>
>That it's not "rare".

Reread first sentence.

>Kim:
>> The point at issue is a difference between speech and writing.
>
>That particular point is without question but I don't think it's
>exactly accurate to say that this special use of the gerundive
>is exclusively "literary" or "rare". It just doesn't seem to be
>from my own experience if my two cents are worth anything.

I can't dispute your experience, though one might suspect a degree of
influence from English on Canadian French. I deny that your Google
statistics prove anything at all except that the construction can be
found in written sources, which was never at issue.

Kim Bastin