CHAPTER XXIX.
THE PRESENT PARTICIPLE.
[§ 344]. The present participle, called also the active participle and the participle in -ing, is formed from the original word by adding -ing; as, move, moving. In the older languages the termination was more marked, being -nd. Like the Latin participle in -ns, it was originally declined. The Mœso-Gothic and Old High German forms are habands and hapêntér = having, respectively. The -s in the one language, and the -êr in the other, are the signs of the case and gender. In the Old Saxon and Anglo-Saxon the forms are -and and -ande; as bindand, bindande = binding. In all the Norse languages, ancient and modern, the -d is preserved. So it is in the Old Lowland Scotch, and in many of the modern provincial dialects of England, where strikand, goand, is said for striking, going. In Staffordshire, where the -ing is pronounced -ingg, there is a fuller sound than that of the current English. In Old English the form in -nd is predominant, in Middle English the use fluctuates, and in New English the termination -ing is universal. In the Scotch of the modern writers we find the form -in.
The rising sun o'er Galston muirs
Wi' glorious light was glintin';
The hares were hirplin' down the furs,
The lav'rocks they were chantin'.—Burns' Holy Fair.
[§ 345]. It has often been remarked that the participle is used in many languages as a substantive. This is true in Greek,
Ὁ πράσσων = the actor, when a male.
Ἡ πρασσοῦσα = the actor, when a female.
Τὸ πράττου = the active principle of a thing.
But it is also stated, that, in the English language, the participle is used as a substantive in a greater degree than elsewhere, and that it is used in several cases and in both numbers, e.g.,
Rising early is healthy,
There is health in rising early.
This is the advantage of rising early.
The risings in the North, &c.
Some acute remarks of Mr. R. Taylor, in the Introduction to his edition of Tooke's "Diversions of Purley," modify this view. According to these, the -ing in words like rising is not the -ing of the present participle; neither has it originated in the Anglo-Saxon -end. It is rather the -ing in words like morning; which is anything but a participle of the non-existent verb morn, and which has originated in the Anglo-Saxon substantival termination -ung. Upon this Rask writes as follows:—"Gitsung, gewilnung = desire; swutelung = manifestation; clænsung = a cleansing; sceawung = view, contemplation; eorð-beofung = an earthquake; gesomnung = an assembly. This termination is chiefly used in forming substantives from verbs of the first class in -ian; as hálgung = consecration, from hálgian = to consecrate. These verbs are all feminine."—"Anglo-Saxon Grammar," p. 107.
Now, whatever may be the theory of the origin of the termination -ing in old phrases like rising early is
healthy, it cannot apply to expressions of recent introduction. Here the direct origin in -ung is out of the question.
The view, then, that remains to be taken of the forms in question is this:
1. That the older forms in -ing are substantival in origin, and = the Anglo-Saxon -ung.
2. That the latter ones are irregularly participial, and have been formed on a false analogy.