"A screaming" - question to native speakers

[Paul Mackin]

I got to thinking about my attempt to answer Janos and realized I
pretty well flubbed the grammar angle.

Why does "a screaming" sound so grammatically correct?

Because it IS correct.

"A": in the phrase does not function as an article but as a modifier.
(as Janos of course suggested)

Normally, possessive case nouns or possessive pronouns modify gerunds.

His screaming, her screaming, its screaming, their screaming, or
whatever's screaming..

But if it's no one or no one thing in particular who possesses the
screaming (at least that we want to disclose) then it can perfectly
legitimately be "a" screaming.

The thing you  focus on in grammar is not the particular word but
rather the function served.

Anyway.

P




2009/6/30 Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com>:
> 2009/6/30 János Székely <miksaapja at gmail.com>:
>> Paul,
>>
>> sorry, "pronoun" was due to sleepiness, of course it's an indef. article.
>> My point is the following: grammatically you can't use an indefinite
>> article with gerund, only with countable nouns. There is no such
>> sentence as "Two screamings come across the sky". At least that's what
>> my textbook English sez to me. That's why I rely on your native ear.
>> What I ask is how  you perceive it:
>> - is it a deliberate act of grammatical dislocation (substituting
>> uncountable "screaming" for the more usual countable noun "scream"),
>> - or is it a meaning of "a" different from the indefinite article,
>> that is, "one kind of" (as in "a poise, an uneasiness").
>>
>> János
>
>
> Janos
>
> Thanks for the clarification.
>
> First, I don't think the sentence as written would ever sound
> grammatically dislocated to a native speaker, but I do see your point
> and technically it may be valid.and a case of meaning trumping
> grammar.
>
> "A scream comes across the sky" would not carry the same meaning to me
> as "a screaming comes across the sky."
>
>
> If  the former had been used the scream would seem single-sourced. One
> screamer. Quick and over almost instantaneous.
>
> As Pynchon wrote it, the meaning is more vague.  There are possibly
> many screamers or sources of the screaming.The screaming seems more
> prolonged, even continuing.
>
> It's like the way the "ing" inflection works in verbs proper.. "I am
> seeing" and "I was seeing" suggest continuous action as opposed to "I
> see."  and "I saw."
>
>
> Finally "a screaming" may seem a little more ominous than "the
> screaming," with "a" serving to modify above and beyond the way a mere
> indefinite article would as you suggest.  The way P wrote it sounds
> best to me. Can.t really be sure about the "ominous" part.
>
> Good luck.
>
> P.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> 2009/ 6/30 Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com>:
>>> I wasn't sure I understood Janos' question.
>>>
>>> Semantically  of course we don't know yet whether the screaming was
>>> from a human, another primate, or was a scream-like sound generated by
>>> an inanimate object.
>>>
>>> But syntactically (grammatically), the construction is completely
>>> straightforward.  A verbal noun (gerund) preceded by an indefinite
>>> article.
>>>
>>> P
>>>
>>> 2009/6/30 Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>:
>>>> I have to choose option #3.  It seems to me to be as onomatopoetic as
>>>> it is anything else.  It is a particular screaming only after we read
>>>> on.  Its initial signified meaning is unknown, so it might be any
>>>> screaming, physical, metaphysical or hallucinatory.  That ambiguity is
>>>> a part of the greatness of it as an opening phrase.  The first thing
>>>> that happens to the reader is that he (and / or she) is cast out of
>>>> certainty like a progenitor from Paradise.
>>>>
>>>> 2009/6/29 János Székely <miksaapja at gmail.com>:
>>>>> I'm writing an essay on translating GR and I'm having doubts "after
>>>>> the fact": Would you read "a screaming" in the first sentence as
>>>>> - pronoun + countable noun, or as
>>>>> - a [kind of] screaming,
>>>>> or is it ambiguous?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thx
>>>>> János
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>