Abstract
In this chapter, I spell out (and give reasons for) some syntactic assumptions underlying the semantics of nominals (1)–(3) proposed in the next chapter:
-
(1)
the performance of the song
-
(2)
the performing of the song
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(3)
his performing the song
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Notes
I am omitting any indication of the category of -ing in the tree. If we follow Williams (1981), we should assign this suffix to the category N.
A syntactic derivation of these nouns is implied by Jackendoff s (1977) phrase-structure rule schema This schema suggests that ingot-nouns are derived in the syntax by instantiation for i=0. Jackendoff, however, does not discuss ingot. -nouns explicitly in connection with his deverbalizing rule schema, nor does he provide evidence for assuming that these nouns should be syntactically generated rather than lexically generated.
I am assuming that the restrictions imposed by X-bar theory must be incorporated to some extent in different frameworks. Partee (1985) argues, for example, that principles of X-bar theory may play a role in constraining the format of the category of basic expressions in a categorial framework.
See, for example, Abney (1987).
Here, I’m considering only ing-nouns that show a regular and productive relation to the corresponding verbs.
See, for example, Radford (1988).
Notice, by the way, that this does not crucially depend on the view that the grammar provides phrase-structure rules of kind (g) as opposed, let’s say, to the view that syntactic structures are projected from the subcategorization features of items in the lexicon according to the principles of X-bar theory. If we assume that -ing subcategorizes for verbs that assign accusative case, this would lead us to expect (10) to be a possible structure of English, since explain away is a V in the syntax and assigns accusative case.
This account differs from Kayne’s (1984a) account. Kayne (1984a) assumes that nouns, unlike verbs, cannot govern across S. Since of-insertion is assumed to depend on government, of cannot be inserted, hence case cannot be assigned to BillNp, and (15) is ruled out.
Lebeaux proposes to account for the properties of the ingot nouns by assuming LF-raising of -ing to N-bar. He suggests that these nouns have many verbal properties because they are verbs at LF. LF-raising of affixes is used in Pesetsky (1985) to account for “paradoxes” in morphology.
This is indeed a conclusion Grimshaw(1986) draws. However, Grimshaw (1986) claims that the of-arguments of all event-denoting nouns are obligatory. The well-formedness of (19) and (iii) (i) the destruction of the papers was a slow process (19) the destruction was a slow process (ii) the extraction of the tooth took place yesterday (iii) the extraction took place yesterday seems to me to be a problem for this claim. I come back to this point in chapter 5.
I argue in chapter 5 that (a) and (b) are correct.
Chomsky (1970) does not give a fully explicit syntactic representation of gerundive nominals. I am basing my attribution on the following passage: We might assume that one of the forms of NP introduced by rules of the categorial component of the base is (5), and that general rules of affix placement give the freely generated surface form of the gerundive nominal: (5) [,,NP nom (Aspect) VP sl
See also Horn (1975).
I disagree with Abney on this judgement, since I find this sentence grammatical.
The view that (3) is an NP has been challenged in Williams (1975). Williams (1983), however, concedes the existence of NP gerunds.
See Williams (1975), Schachter (1976), Reuland (1983), Abney (1987).
The lack of sentence adverbs in gerundive NPs provides also an argument against Abney’s (1986) version of the NP-over-S analysis, which involves embedding a sentence with a PRO under the DP node (Abney assumes that NPs are headed by the determiner). Abney (1987) rejects this analysis also on grounds that the well¬formedness of its being likely contradicts his assumption that the genitive in gerundive NPs assigns a theta role to the subject.
This way of accounting for lack of adjectives in English gerundive NPs is not available in Horn’s analysis, since according to Horn these NPs contain a head noun.
Schachter (1976) pointed out the following occurrences of gerundive NPs with determiners: (i) there is no enjoying this world without thee (Ben Jonson) (ii) this telling tales out of school has to stop Abney (1987), however, has observed that the construction there is no + gerundive VP is an idiom, as shown by the contrast below there’s no fixing it now there’s no turning back the clock I would recommend no stuffing ballot boxes this time John thought no teasing his dog could bother the general Abney also observes that gerundive NPs of the form this + gerundive VP are only marginally acceptable, and have a strong quotational flavor, as in this “Why, Mommy” every time I tell you to do something has to stop Thus, Schachter’s examples do not provide reliable evidence for the acceptability of determiners in English gerundive nominals.
Notice, by the way, that the ability of the definite article to occur in Italian cannot be attributed to the fact that Italian is a pro-drop language and English is not. If this were the case we should expect Dutch not to allow the definite article, since Dutch is not pro-drop (H. van Riemsdijk p. c.).
This problem does not arise for Horn’s analysis. But in this analysis the lack of adjectives is even more problematic than in Jackendoff s and Schachter’s accounts, since gerundive NPs are assumed to be projections of N.
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© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Zucchi, A. (1993). English Nominalization: Some Syntactic Issues. In: The Language of Propositions and Events. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 51. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8161-5_2
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