(Plovdiv University Press, 2026) Georgieva, Nikoleta
This paper investigates the adjectival nature of the English -ing participle, tracing its roots and examining its manifestations. The adjectival characteristics are conceptualized in two distinct ways: (1) adjectiveness – an inherent property of some participles, rooted in their semantic content, and (2) adjectivization – an acquired property resulting from syntactic deployment. The analysis reviews existing criteria for the classification of -ing participles in order to identify the most reliable ones and to organise them into distinct sets corresponding to each of the two phenomena. In addition, the study investigates both the principal meanings conveyed by adjectival -ing participles and the verb classes that hold the greatest potential for their derivation, presenting a meaning-based classification of adjectival -ing forms.