Basic English Grammar with Exercises - MEK

Chapter 8 - The Syntax of Non-Finite Clausesassign Case and hence there is no need to insert of. This can be clearly seen in thedifferent behaviours of verbs and their derived nominal counterparts:(85) a observe the result – *observe of the resultb observation of the result – *observation the resultAs the ing element in (84b) has an of before its DP complement, we can assume that itis a noun not a verb. Finally, these kind of ing elements are modified by adjectivesrather than adverbs again indicating their nominal status:(86) a the enormous/*enormously buildingb the intricate/*intricately painting of the landscapeIt is usually accepted that such elements are simply derived nominals turned from verbto noun by a lexical process before being entered into a structure.If we now refer back to (83), we note that some of these features are missing. For astart, there is no preposition before the DP complement. This suggests that this ingelement is not a noun, but a verb. This is confirmed by the fact that this element ismodified by an adverb, not an adjective:(87) the patient’s obstinately/*obstinate refusing the medicineVerbs head VPs not NPs and so presumably the part of the structure headed by the ingelement is a VP. This is where the problems begin. Although a determiner is notpossible with these elements:(88) *the refusing the medicineAs we see in (83) a possessor is allowed. Whatever the status of the possessive marker‘’s’, possessors are elements which are confined to DP specifier position and hence thewhole construction would appear to be a DP. This is further confirmed by thedistribution facts concerning the construction. Note that the gerund in (83) serves asthe complement of a preposition. In general prepositions take DP complements andthey certainly do not take VP complements. Prepositions do not even easily takeclausal complements:(89) *they were worried about [that the patient refused the medicine]There are a few prepositions which appear to be able to take IP complements (e.g.since, before, after, etc.), but then it might be that these are kinds of complementisersrather than prepositions.The distributional evidence therefore favours the analysis of the gerund as a DP.Hence we have the following structure:304