This paper illustrates how different methodological approaches can be combined to reveal complex patterns of constructional variation and change in the diachronic development of English ing-nominals. More specifically, we argue that approaching the data from a schema-based (rather than morphemebased) perspective shows that nominal gerunds in English, from the 16 th to the 19 th century, have undergone a semantic drift towards more "nouny" construal variants. This hypothesis is supported not only by raw frequency counts, but also by association measures and by a detailed analysis of hapax legomena.