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Can we have two "ing" form in this way: "I'm thinking of settling down at 25" if so, is this the correct sentence break down I-subject, am-auxiliary verb, thinking- progressive verb, of-proposition, settling-gerund....thanks

Olubodun Timmy
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  • Yes, you can. Your analysis is fine -- I would just add that "settling" is best called a verb. – BillJ Dec 19 '17 at 14:36
  • I think it's a gerund: a verb that acts as a noun but retain some of its verb characteristics. – Olubodun Timmy Dec 19 '17 at 14:50
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    No, it's not a noun but a 100% verb. It clearly denotes an action. – BillJ Dec 19 '17 at 14:56
  • So you're saying both thinking and settling are verbs in that sentence? – Olubodun Timmy Dec 19 '17 at 15:06
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    Yes, they most certainly are. "Settling down" is an idiom consisting of verb + preposition. – BillJ Dec 19 '17 at 15:11
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    Yes, both of the verbs are verbs. But they're each part of a different construction. The progressive construction requires a specific auxiliary verb, whereas the gerund construction has a great deal of latitude for omitting or inflecting subjects and doesn't use auxiliary verbs at all. As for both together, it's not ungrammatical, but it does exemplify a mysterious constraint in English discussed here. – John Lawler Dec 19 '17 at 16:07
  • @BillJ On the other hand, in the sentence “faced with a choice between exposure and murder, he decided on murder”, ‘murder’ denotes an action but is certainly not a verb. – Tuffy Dec 19 '17 at 23:36
  • @Tuffy I prefer the umpteen point gradience (deverbal noun ... ... ... present participle) analysis put forward by Quirk et al rather than the lumping approach of Huddleston et al. But there are some who think CGEL is unquestionable. Aarts gives a balanced view of the different schools of thought. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 20 '17 at 00:36
  • @Tuffy The comparison would have to be "settling down" vs "murdering". "Settle down" is a well-established verbal idiom (verb+prep), and I don't think anyone would be tempted to call "settling" a noun. – BillJ Dec 20 '17 at 07:20
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    @EdwinAshworth Yes, I agree. Asking whether a particular word is a verb or noun, for example, is the wrong question. Nor was talk of ‘gerunds’ in English ever a good idea. We should concentrate on the job a word or phrase is doing. The trouble is that that this may make life quite hard for learners of English and for the writers of text books for them. What had made it even harder is that you can no longer say that a given word is based on a verb or verb or noun stem is basically a verb or noun. We are free to use nouns (like ‘access’) as transitive verbs or verbs (like ‘swim’) as nouns. – Tuffy Dec 20 '17 at 09:58
  • @BillJ Perhaps so. My point was that the fact that a word refers to an action, does not make it a verb. Thus in the sentence “They are on a charity swim at the moment.” does not make the noun ‘swim’ a verb on the grounds that it is an action. – Tuffy Dec 20 '17 at 10:07
  • @Tuffy Again you're using a non-participle example. The word "settling" is a verb in the OP's example. If you want to think otherwise, that's up to you. You are making a lot of fuss about nothing. – BillJ Dec 20 '17 at 10:11
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    Whether a word is a noun or a verb depends on its behaviour in the clause. We can test for verb vs noun status by looking at such things as complementation and modification, the presence of determiners and plural inflection. – BillJ Dec 20 '17 at 10:23
  • @BillJ In the right setting you can! – Tuffy Dec 20 '17 at 13:43
  • @BillJ Sorry, Bill, That last response was not to you, but to a different participant. I am having trouble managing this on a mobile screen. I agree entirely with what you say. Among other things, whether you would an adjective or an adverb as modifier is not a bad test. On that test, I am embarrassed to admit, ‘settling’ is indeed being treated as a verb. I am resigned to SETTLING QUIETLY down to nurse my wounded pride. But I am glad we agree on essentials. Thank you for being very clear. – Tuffy Dec 20 '17 at 13:59
  • How did anyone get into all this doubt, please?

    Does I'm thinking of (something) involve one verb and its object?

    Does that (something) stop … settling (anything) being one verb whether or not here, it happens to be the object of another verb?

    What else matters, please?

     – Robbie Goodwin Dec 20 '17 at 18:33
  • "I'm thinking of settling down" is not the same as "I'm thinking of a number". It's somewhat comparable to the difference between "I'm going to read a book" and "I'm going to London". – Barmar Dec 21 '17 at 01:43
  • On the other hand, if you change "thinking of" to "thinking about", the object will usually be treated as a noun phrase. Compare "thinking about eating" with "thinking of eating". – Barmar Dec 21 '17 at 01:45
  • Barmar, you've just talked about what confuses me. I would love if you could shed more light on that. Also, what's the difference between the two sentences "thinking of eating" and "thinking about eating"? – Olubodun Timmy Dec 21 '17 at 07:41

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