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-ing is a suffix used to make one of the inflected forms of English verbs. This verb form is used as a present participle , as a gerund , and sometimes as an independent noun or adjective . The suffix is also found in certain words like morning and ceiling , and in names such as Browning .
This applies especially to the -ing ending of verbs, but also in other words such as morning, nothing, ceiling, Buckingham, etc. G-dropping speakers may pronounce this syllable as [ɪn] or [ən] (reducing to a syllabic [n] in some cases), while non-G-dropping speakers have /ɪŋ/ (/əŋ/ with the weak vowel merger) or /iŋ/. [32]
Old English possessed suffixes -ung and -ing, which created verbal nouns, alongside a suffix -inde that created present participles. By the 15th century, the nd forms had begun to be replaced by the ng forms, creating an alternation between velar and alveolar suffixes for the same functions that is at the root of the modern alternation between ...
When a noun contains more than one syllable and the stress is on the syllable before the -ing ending, the diminutive suffix will be -kje. The ng will be replaced by the cluster -nkje. woning home woninkje mening opinion meninkje pudding pudding puddinkje haring herring harinkje
When suffixes are added to words ending with a hard or soft g (such as -ed, -ing, -er, -est, -ism, -ist, -edness, -ish(ness), -ily, -iness, -ier, -iest, -ingly, -edly, and -ishly), the sound is normally maintained. Sometimes the normal rules of spelling changes before suffixes can help signal whether the hard or soft sound is intended.
Some weak verbs with long vowels in their present tense stems (such as keep) took a short vowel in the past tense and past participle (kept). [4] In some weak verbs ending in a final -t or -d, this final consonant coalesced with the weak past ending to leave a single -t or -d in the past forms.
Similarly, (small) cap -DOWN might be a locative suffix used in nominal inflections, prototypically indicating direction downward but possibly also used where it is not translatable as 'down' in English, whereas lower-case 'down' would be a direct English translation of a word meaning 'down'. [3] Not all authors follow this convention.
In these varieties, the sound /r/ is pronounced only when it is immediately followed by a vowel. Linking R and intrusive R may also occur between a root morpheme and certain suffixes, such as -ing or -al. For instance, in words such as draw(r)ing, withdraw(r)al, or Kafka(r)esque. These phenomena first appeared in English sometime after the year ...