Talk:remaining

RFV discussion: August 2009–November 2009

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Rfv-sense noun "action of the verb to remain". I don't think one can find evidence that this is a true noun. DCDuring TALK 00:02, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Remaining convinced of this proved impossible. This item's remaining here for a little while should serve as a reminder of how much grammar I still need to learn.

withdrawn. DCDuring TALK 02:09, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I'm inclined to agree with your original rfv-sense. This is not really a POS-worthy noun; it's just a regular old gerund, and dictionaries do not ordinarily include separate nominal entries for gerunds. -- WikiPedant 20:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

It deserves some kind of noun section, however, going on the Google-Book-Search hits for the plural. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:52, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I guess we do not have a separate noun PoS if they don't have a plural or a meaning distinguishable from the verb-derived gerund meaning. Reminiscent of not having adjective PoS for attributive use of noun unless it is gradable or comparable. Does that even need a rfv-sense?

I have always disliked these "action of the verb" definitions. Whatever their value in getting a lot of basic entries into Wiktionary, they seem to have outlived their usefulness, even in cases where the -ing form would warrant a noun PoS. DCDuring TALK 20:44, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

It does have a plural (see Google Books), but generally in a sense that seems to mean "remnant" and might be obsolete. Equinox ◑ 22:11, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I share DC's dislike for these "action of the verb" definitions -- both because they are unremarkable garden-variety gerunds and because the potential number of such needless defns is very large. I suspect almost all gerunds are in principle capable of being pluralized (although some, like (deprecated template usage) leavings, have a syntactic life of their own). It is a judgment call which gerunds have sufficient usage and sufficiently noteworthy wrinkles of meaning to merit being recorded in entries, but, like DC, I think most of these entries have outlived their usefulness. -- WikiPedant 23:21, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I support their inclusion because otherwise we have no way to include the plurals, which are often perfectly valid (and attestable) words. As I mentioned in a previous RFV or RFD discussion, one cannot automatically assume that every -ing can take an -s (my example at the time was defragmentings, which DCD thought he might defend, but I could think of worse ones). I do get a slightly bad taste in my mouth when adding them, though, I admit. Equinox ◑ 23:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Just think of all the phrasal verb gerunds we could define that way, perhaps with a bot! But I am more sure that the definitions so worded have outlived their usefulness that I am that the entries have. I am not sure how much noun-like behavior a gerund needs before it is worth an entry as a noun. Forming a plural, preferably in an English work, I had always thought was sufficient. Merely serving as a subject of a verb or an object of a verb or a preposition doesn't seem sufficient, nor does being modified by a possessive. Being modified by an adjective or a determiner or an article might be somewhat more stringent, but not prohibitive tests adequate for our purposes. But this is just a naive proposal from an amateur. Perhaps the professionals have thoughts on this. DCDuring TALK 23:41, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Boy. I wish I could think of a way to express the nausea I feel at uses of "remainings" without being unduly presciptive. It seems almost misleading to have it appear without some kind of tag. It appears once in OED (17th century), not at all in COCA, once as an error in BNC, not in Time corpus. Many of the occurrences seem to be in academic writings by what look to be non-natives and sometimes in quotes or italics. I don't doubt that it is attestable. Many of the uses just look like mistakes. DCDuring TALK 00:16, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

{{rare}}/{{uncommon}}? You could also just explain this in a usage note. It is not prescriptive to say that most native speakers will use an alternative word, if the literature suggests this. Dominic·t 07:56, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I may need a little inspiration. And also to settle how gerunds are presented. DCDuring TALK 10:36, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Looking at uses of "remains" suggests that "remain" is sometimes used to mean "remnant" (itself derived from an Anglo-Norman participle), in which use it seems a true noun. Plural use of this as gerund (ie, instance of the "activity" of remaining) is rare.

I also am having trouble finding clear evidence of use as an adjective. For a present participle-like adjective that comes down to graded or comparative use.

If the noun is attestable as I read it, do we need some kind of definition as gerund for contrast or a usage note linking to gerund? DCDuring TALK 10:36, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any clearly gerundial use at all -- all cases of "remainings" seem to be equivalent to one or more of "remainder", "remains", or "remnants". So the only way I would see to mention it would be in a usage note mentioning that this word is not used as a gerund -- but that seems like overkill. -- Visviva 10:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I take it you mean a gerundial sense of the plural. "My steadfastly remaining alert to postings" is a clear example of gerundial use, I think, and shows why my would analyse this as a verb. It is modified by an adverb, not an adjective, and takes the predicate "alert". The ways in which it is noun-like are:

1. that it can function as the subject of a verb or as a complement where one might expect a noun. Some types of clauses and infinitives share this, but are not called nouns.
2. it can be modified by a possessive "my" "DCDuring's". But it cannot be modified by determiners as nouns are.

It seems almost misleading to call an ordinary gerund a noun. Consequently, it seems as if we are better off to put a caution in the usage notes for the Noun (if there is one) or for the Verb/participle than to include a sense line for a gerund under Noun. Frankly, it seems more user friendly to include 3 usage examples under every present participle: progressive, adjectival, gerundive, though that violates our standard practice.

I would agree with this. What I meant to say, I think, is that I couldn't see any usage that was clearly in the nature of a gerundial noun per CGEL. However, I have now found some interesting examples. -- Visviva 11:31, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Also, remaining isn't a true adjective: *"very remaining". If we can all tentatively agree, then I would like to take advantage of the attention to make this an illustration of how we might present this more fully than the bare participle entries that we have. DCDuring TALK 19:09, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

To give folks something to agree to or disagree with, I have added usage examples for the use of the participle to make a progressive form of the verb, as a gerund, and as a participial adjective. I hope that helps users understand why we don't need adjective and noun PoSs to accommodate most usage of "-ing" forms like this. DCDuring TALK 18:22, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Looks like a good model. -- Visviva 11:31, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

There is an interesting pattern of use found chiefly in archaic and theological writings, with a dash of 19th-century usage among that period's cognoscenti of constipation. It appears to be an uncountable gerundial noun, meeting 3 of the 4 CGEL criteria for nounishness (viz. taking "of", "the", and adjectives). Have added three cites accordingly. -- Visviva 11:31, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

RFV passed. Thanks for the cites, Visviva, as well as for the information on the CGEL criteria. —Ruakh_TALK 18:41, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

RFV discussion: March 2011–January 2012

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remaining

Rfv-sense: only adjective sense. I'd have said 'clear widespread use' but I wasn't bold enough to detag the entry. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:38, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this sense is in clearly widespread use, but it doesn't "feel" like an adjective to me. On the other hand, several dictionaries (including various incarnations of Cambridge, Macmillan, and Encarta) do have it as an adjective; and the attested unremaining is apparently un- +‎ remaining rather than *unremain +‎ -ing. And I believe that EncycloPetey (talk • contribs) argued that when a participle precedes and modifies a noun, that's adjective use in and of itself, though I'm really not sure if he's right about that. I think we might as well leave it here for a month to see if anyone has any brilliant cites to call attention to; if not, then move to RFD. —Ruakh_TALK 14:39, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Passed as clearly in widespread use. - -sche (discuss) 20:18, 29 January 2012 (UTC)