Re: Re[4]: [tied] French Gerund v. Participle

Brian:

>>> Nor does it mean the same thing. People who speak French
>>> may be speaking English.
>
>> So would "people speaking French"!
>
> No. If they are speaking French, they are not speaking
> English.

Why are you imposing a style of speech on me? I'm simply stating
how I speak English as a native speaker and my usage is just as
justified as yours. In my usage, "people speaking French" does
_NOT_ imply that they only speak French. You're assuming nonsense.

> I can't speak for French, [...]

Then why are you speaking ignorantly on it?

> [..] but they are not in general used interchangeably in English.

This is a subjective statement of course. All I can legitimately
say to that is: I just don't experience this usage as being as
uncommon as you perceive it to be.

> There are, of course, some specific contexts in which they can be
> interchanged with very little change of sense, [...]

And so you thereby admit to the fact that the door is open for an
_absolute_ interchangeability to surface in everyday speech instead
of holding on to a thin contrast. There is no semantic reason for
the contrast here and both can indeed mean the same thing to some
without a great amount of confusion at all.

>> "people speaking English"
>> (2230 entries)
>
> Irrelevant.

Relevant. This is a sample of usages.

> Of course both forms are acceptable and reasonably common;

Thank you, that's what I'm getting at... in both English and
French.

> the point is that they are not synonymous,

No, they are not synonymous in all dialects of English, you mean
to say. I don't know why you're trying to discredit me as a
native English speaker or why you pick debates with me that are
simply arguementative for no strong reason.

> And of course *all* of this is irrelevant to Kim's original
> observation.

Actually it is because English and French, despite being very
different languages, are intertwined historically, geographically,
politically, culturally and linguistically. What is normal in
English can often end up being normal in French, especially in
Canada where the two languages co-exist under one government. So
the usage of the gerundive here is, as far as I've seen, a situation
seen in both languages, facilitated by a large degree of
Canadian bilingualism.


= gLeN