Re: [tied] French Gerund v. Participle

On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 20:41:00 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>
>Kim:
>> 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.
>
>Are you sure about that? It's natural to use the equivalent construction
>in spoken English, if not French too. One can say both "I am searching
>for people who speak French" or "I am searching people speaking French."
>Both will do. Likewise, I see nothing particularly literary about using
>the participle in this manner in either language.

I was speaking of French, and implied nothing about English. But if
you would say "I am searching people speaking French," I fear we do
not speak the same English ;)

As for French, no doubt some people's speech is more "literary" than
others'. But Judge and Healy, in "A Reference Grammar of Modern
French", write "The present participle is very rarely used in the
spoken language; it belongs nearly exclusively to the written
language. In this it differs from the other -ant forms, and from the
gerund in particular..."

Kim Bastin