On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 13:05:36 -0000, Richard Wordingham wrote:
>I recently came across what seems to be a quirk of French grammar,
>_Je recherche membres parlant français_, not *_Je recherche membres
>parlants français_, 'I am looking for French-speaking members'. What
>is the history of using a gerund rather than the (gerundive-derived?)
>participle in this sort of construction?
This is historically a participle not a gerund. Originally it did
indeed agree in number but not in gender (the Latin pres. part. did
not have distinct masculine and feminine forms). However, distinct
feminine forms were eventually created and are found in older
literature.
The decision that that the participle should _not_ agree with the noun
it modifies was a prescriptive one made by the Académie in 1679,
apparently as a means of distinguishing it from the verbal adjective
in -ant. Why this was felt to be necessary is not obvious. Some
writers continued to make the participle agree, but it is very rare
nowadays except in a few fossilised legalese expressions. That the
Académie could get away with such a proceeding at all is probably due
to the fact that the participial construction is practically confined
to the written language.
Kim Bastin