ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION OF GERUNDS (Verbal Adverbs) IN RABIYA
In this paper, we will try to analyse and classify gerunds. Traditionally, the term gerund in Latin and European grammars is often synonymous with gerundive. In Slavic languages, the distinction is made between gerund (verbal adverb) and gerundive (verbal adjective), which may have an adverbial function as well. Gerunds (verbal adverbs) are verbal forms that have certain features found in verbal nouns and verbs (voice, negation, forms of periphrastic conjugations, modifiers, complements, etc.). In the sentence, they function as adverbials for manner and time. Since the subject in the sentences may be expressed, and since they are semantic equivalents of dependent clauses in European languages, some Turkologists classify them as infinitve predicative (or quasipredicative) forms. One of the issues in contemporary Turkish language studies is gerund classification. Namely, there are other morpho-syntactic forms in Turkish that correspond to gerunds in terms of their function and semantics. They are, therefore, completely or partially classifed as such, without morphological criteria of the classification. These criteria are: they are formed by independent suffixes, they are impersonal and do not accept affixes for case, i.e. they cannot be declined. The examples necessary for the gerund analysis will be taken from Rabiya.