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Is there a name for the archaic form of a-verb participle, as in a-walking?

It appears in poetry and songs, for example,

As I was a-walking down Paradise Street...

Time is the stream I go a-fishing in.

Andrew Leach
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Michael D. Maginn
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  • Related: What is a-rovin'? – Edwin Ashworth Feb 20 '21 at 12:18
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    Does this answer your question? What is the history of adding the a- prefix to form words? bye writes 'As with a lot of what happened during this period, what we have now in the language is mostly what was present in and around London when the orthography was fixed by printing. Many of the a- words that one recognises as quaint regionalisms today (like a-hunting) were standard in dialects that did not, themselves, have the good fortune to become the standard themselves.' Just a prefix. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 20 '21 at 12:21
  • They aren't gerunds, they are present participles; they're not functioning as nouns but as verbs. You are actually walking down Paradise Street, you do actually fish in the stream. They would only be gerunds if you were using them as nouns "The walking I was doing in Paradise Street" and "The fishing I do in the stream". – BoldBen Feb 20 '21 at 13:17
  • @BoldBen 'gerund' is ill-defined (though probably the way you're using it is most popular among those who still risk using it). CGEL lumps into gerund-participials, while ACGEL (Quirk et al) use 'ing-form' (as do others) and prefer a gradience model. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 20 '21 at 14:44
  • To all those tempted to vote to close this question on the grounds that it is a duplicate, I would just like to point out that the OP explicitly asked for the name of such verb forms, and the previous questions linked above do not seem to provide one. – linguisticturn Feb 20 '21 at 23:19
  • @EdwinAshworth I don't think the link you posted answers the OP's question. I might be missing it, but in the question you linked, I can't see anyone putting forward a name for this specific verb form, and the OP explicitly asked for a name. – linguisticturn Feb 20 '21 at 23:24
  • The question included 'What is the "a-" or "-a" called?' which makes an answer there proper. Robusto's answer includes the term 'a-prefixing'. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 21 '21 at 12:55
  • @EdwinAshworth OK, I just clicked here (that's the one… right?). I see no answer by Robusto (there are four answers, by bye, kiamlaluno, user3094534, and Mari-Lou A). And if I search that page for 'a-prefixing', I get no hits. Are you sure the answer is on that page? (Meanwhile, I did find some other questions that do have that answer.) – linguisticturn Feb 21 '21 at 18:26
  • I did locate some EL&U questions that do provide the answer (search the page for 'a-pre'; some of the hits use a ligature for 'fi', so don't use 'a-prefix'): here, here (in a comment), here, and here. – linguisticturn Feb 21 '21 at 18:30
  • @linguisticturn Sorry; I'm unsure whether the posts they are a-changin'. 'Yale Grammatical Diversity''s answer at the times they are a-changin' contains the term a-prefixing. Elsewhere, another contributor has given a-verbing (which is an unhelpful term). There are alreadt too many threads covering this topic. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 22 '21 at 13:15

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There is a name for this linguistic phenomenon: according to Yale Grammatical Diversity Project (link), it is called a-prefixing.

A-prefixing is a phenomenon where a prefix, a-, attaches to a verbal form with the suffix -ing, as in the following Appalachian English examples from Wolfram (1976):

1)  a.  I know he was a-tellin' the truth, but I was a-comin' home.
     b.  Well, she's a-gettin' the black lung now, ain't she?

The verbs themselves are said to have a-prefixed forms (source: W. Wolfram, 'Toward a Description of A-Prefixing in Appalachian English', American Speech Vol. 51, No. 1/2, Spring - Summer, 1976.)

linguisticturn
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