adjective or adverb before ing-form?

Question

Let's consider the example sentence

Alice's trying to frame him had left Bob wary of anything she might do or say in his presence.

If I now wanted to express that Alice allegedly tried to frame him, would I insert it as an adjective or an adverb?

Put differently: is "trying", in this case, considered a noun or a verb?

Personally, I'm thinking it would make sense for it to be a noun, s.th. the sentence would end up being

Alice's alleged trying to frame him [...]

And though I cannot help but feel this sounds wrong, I can produce no good reason why I should use an adverb with "trying", here.

Answer 1

It could be either one, depending on whether "trying" is a noun (then you use "alleged") or a gerund, which is a verb form (then you use "allegedly"). This is because adverbs can't modify nouns, and adjectives can't modify verbs. The ambiguity of structure arises because "-ing" has multiple uses in English, and here, we might be dealing with the "-ing" that derives nouns from verbs or the "-ing" that accompanies gerunds, which are verbs.

Some English speakers might not accept the adjective "alleged" here, because they could be missing a lexical noun "trying". This is a difference between inflectional endings, like the ending in the gerund (which does not change the part of speech), and the derivational ending in the noun "trying". Derivational forms are not basic to the structure of the language -- individuals may differ in whether they are acquainted with specific words in the lexicon.

What is going on is clarified if we change the example so that "trying" has a direct object, since nouns do not take direct objects:

Alice's trying ice cream had left Bob wary of any gourmet foods she might suggest.

Now, you can't use the adjective "alleged".

Answer 2

Trying is definitely a noun, indeed the subject of your sentence, and it happens to be a GERUND:

1: verbal noun in Latin that expresses generalized or uncompleted action

2: any of several linguistic forms analogous to the Latin gerund in languages other than Latin; especially: the English verbal noun ending in -ing that has the function of a substantive and at the same time shows the verbal features of tense, voice, and capacity to take adverbial qualifiers and to govern objects

Emphases mine.

However, a question remains as to whether or not having the capacity to take adverbial qualifiers means that gerunds cannot (technically) take adjectival qualifiers.

In either case, as per the comments above, many might prefer to restructure the sentence. For example:

The allegation that Alice had tried to frame him....

or

Alice allegedly having tried to frame him....

The plain fact is that "Alice's allegedly trying" is an inelegant construction.

Answer 3

It a gerund. Gerunds are called double parts of speech — verb within, noun without. They inherit the function of mother-verbs and discharge the functions of nouns in their new avatar. The possessive modifier is the first test that it is a noun now.They are qualified by adjectives (being nouns) and can be modified by adverbs (being verbs)

• Romances provide pleasant reading (adj)

•The teacher summarily rejects indiscriminately flogging.(adv)

In our case –

1) Alice's alleged trying...

2) Allegedly Alice's trying...