The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect - Vinartus

1. A PUZZLE AND ITS SOLUTION 19(13) Halil'-in kedi-ye yemek- ver-me-di~g-iHalil-GEN cat-DAT food-ACC give-NEG-ING-3sg\Halil's not giving food to the cat"As in English, the Turkish gerund behaves like a noun phrase in its distribution,and in showing genitive case on the subject. On the other hand|againas in English|kediye yemek vermedi~gi clearly constitutes a verb phrase.Nouns do not take accusative complements in Turkish, for example, anymore than in English.But if we analyze the noun phrase in Turkish as in (9), an extraordinarilysimple account for the gerund falls into our lap: under analysis (9), the nounphrase and sentence involve Inectional elements taking projections of Nand V, respectively. The exceptionality of the gerund consists therein, thatthe nominal Inectional element exceptionally takes VP as a complement,instead of a projection of N. (14a) gives the structure of a non-gerundivenoun phrase in Turkish, (14b) that of a gerund:(14) a. XP b. XP/ \ / \GEN X' GEN X'/ \ / \X N'(') X VPThe source of the gerund construction, under this analysis, is a selectionalquirk of X|in the gerundive, X exceptionally takes a verbal rather thannominal complement.In English, we need only suppose that there is an empty nominal AGRassigning Genitive case, exactly corresponding to the nominal AGR we seeovertly in Turkish. With that, we can import into English the analysis wejust sketched for gerunds in Turkish, giving us a remarkably simple andprincipled solution for the puzzle of the gerund. The pieces t together thisway:(15) XP (Noun Phrase)/ \XP X'| / \John's X VP| / \AGR V XP| |building a spaceship