1.3 A Typology of Word Categories

Having introduced some of the basic concepts, let us now turn to look at what categories we need to refer to in the description of a language like English. In generative linguistics it is often seen as a positive aim to keep basic theoretical equipment to a bare minimum and not to expand these unnecessarily. This can be seen in the standard approach to word categories in terms of the attempt to keep these to as small a number as possible. In the present book we will mainly be concerned with eight basic categories. These come in two general types: thematic categories and functional categories. In the thematic categories we have verbs (V), nouns (N), adjectives (A) and prepositions (P) and in the functional categories there are inflections (I), determiners (D), degree adverbs (Deg) and complementisers (C). Thus we have the following classification system:

1.3.1 Categorial features

Before we start to look at the properties of individual categories, we will make the typology of categories described in (23) a little more systematic. One might wonder why there are these categories and why their division is so regular: four thematic categories and four functional ones. Moreover, we may have the feeling that the categories given in (23) are not completely unrelated to each other. For example, it is often felt that nouns and verbs are somehow opposites of each other or that adjectives have some things in common with nouns and other things in common with verbs. Even across the thematic/functional divide, we may see similarities. For example, words like the, these and some are determiners and these seem more related to nouns, which they usually accompany, than to verbs. Modal auxiliary verbs, such as may, can and must, which as we will see are classified as belonging to the inflections, are obviously more closely related to verbs than nouns.

1.3.1 Categorial features

But how can we explain these perceived relationships? It is certain that if we define word categories in individual terms, say by just listing possible categories, then any explanation of the categories themselves or their relationships will be impossible. An analogy might serve to make the point clearer. Suppose that biologists had never thought of categorising living things into taxonomic groups and instead simply identified individual sub-species such as ladybirds, field mice, pythons, etc. From this perspective it would be impossible to answer questions such as why do ladybirds and bluebottles both have six legs and wings? At best, biologists would only be able to claim that this was an accidental chance happening. Once there is a taxonomic system, such questions are easily answered: ladybirds and bluebottles are both insects and all insects have six legs and wings. The same is true for word categories. If we merely identify categories such as nouns, verbs and determiners, we cannot explain relationships between the categories.

1.3.1 Categorial features

How can we capture the sense that determiners have something in common with nouns and modal auxiliary verbs have something in common with verbs, even though one of these pairs of elements is function and the other is thematic? The answer is fairly easy. The pairs may differ in terms of the [±F] feature, but they are similar in terms of the [±N] and [±V] features:

1.3.1 Categorial features

In other words, determiners are the functional equivalents to nouns and modals are functional verbs.

1.3.1 Categorial features

We see from the discussion above the predictive power of the system that we have set up: the system predicted that there should be a fourth thematic category that has certain properties and these fit the category of prepositions very well. We can take this as evidence in favour of this system of features. What else does the system predict? It is clearly predicted that if we add a third binary feature to the two we have just been discussing, then a further four categories will be defined. This again matches perfectly with the description of categories we started this section with, as seen in (23). With the third feature, [±F], there should be four functional categories which match the four thematic categories in terms of their feature settings for [±N] and [±V]. We have already seen how determiners and modals can be analysed as functional nouns and functional verbs, respectively. The expectation is that degree adverbs, such as so and too, and complementisers, such as that and if, should be related to adjectives and prepositions in the same way. As degree adverbs modify adjectives in a very similar way to how determiners modify nouns, it is not difficult to conclude that degree adverbs are functional adjectives. This leaves complementisers to fill the final place as functional prepositions. There is evidence in favour of this assumption, but it rests on notions not yet introduced, so we will have to wait until later to demonstrate it.

1.3.5.2 Determiners

1.3.5.3 Degree Adverbs

So far we have looked at auxiliary verbs, which accompany verbs, and determiners, which accompany nouns, classifying these as functional equivalents of the categories they accompany. The obvious choice for functional adjectives, therefore, are the degree adverbs that accompany them:

1.3.6 Functionally underspecified categories

If there is a non-functional non-thematic verb, then it is predicted that there must be non-functional non-thematic nouns, adjectives and prepositions. To what extent is this prediction fulfilled? There are nouns which do not appear to behave like thematic nouns and yet are clearly not categorised as determiners either. Consider the following examples:

1.3.6 Functionally underspecified categories

The nouns in (190) do not function as the main semantic element of the expression as do those in (191). Note that the expressions in (191) refer to a picture, a disposal and a door respectively, but the referents of the expressions in (190) are wine, tea and tourists respectively. One can pour a bottle of wine and drink a cup of tea, but what is poured and drunk is not the bottle or the cup but the wine and the tea. On the other hand, if one breaks a picture of the president or deplores the disposal of the evidence, it is not the president that gets broken nor the evidence that is deplored. The kind of nouns in (190) are called measure or group nouns and they differ from other nouns in terms of their relationship to their complements. The complements of the nouns in (191) are arguments of those nouns and as such stand in a thematic relationship to them. In other words, these nouns are thematic elements which have Θ-grids in their lexical entries. Measure nouns do not stand in the same relationship to their complements at all and in fact they appear to have a similar relationship to their complements as quantifying determiners do to their nominal complements. This is not a thematic relationship and hence it appears that these nouns are not thematic nouns. Clearly they are not determiners either and hence they seem to be prime candidates to be analysed as non-thematic non-functional nouns.

1.3.6 Functionally underspecified categories

However, degree adverbs do not have comparative and superlative forms and so it would be inaccurate to categorise the post-determiners as functional adjectives (i.e. as [+F, +N, +V]). Therefore we propose that these elements be categorised as [+N, +V] elements. It seems that post-determiners always select nominal complements, which is why they have been confused with determiners and hence they have the following lexical entries:

2.1.2 Phrases

This could mean exactly the same thing as (7), on the assumption that Prudence is a postwoman and Dennis is a doctor. In this case the arguments seem to be the postwoman and the doctor, a sequence of words made up of a determiner followed by a noun. But what status do these sequences of words have in the sentence? It seems as though they function as single words do in (7), inasmuch as they constitute the same arguments as Prudence and Dennis do. Thus these two words seem to go together to make up a unit which is the functional equivalent of the proper nouns in the original sentence. This unit is called a phrase. We can represent this as follows:

2.1.2 Phrases

It seems that in the position where we have pestered Dennis we can have the verb persisted. This is not surprising as the verb pestered is used transitively in (11a), with a nominal complement (Dennis) whereas persisted is used intransitively in (11b), without a complement. However, if intransitive verbs distribute the same as transitive verbs plus their complements, this means that transitive verbs and their complements form a phrase that has a distribution in the same way that a determiner with its nominal complement distributed like certain nouns. Thus a more accurate description of the sentence than (9) would be:

2.1.6 Labels

Although we have been labelling phrases with the symbol P, not all phrases are equivalent to each other. This is best seen in terms of the distributions of phrases. Take, for example the two phrases in (16) the postwoman and the doctor. These look very similar, both consisting of a determiner followed by a noun. They also have the same distribution patterns, as shown by the fact that wherever we can put one of them we will also be able to put the other:

2.1.6 Labels

Clearly this phrase must be different from the previous two. We will see in the next chapter that the identity of a phrase is determined by one of the words it contains. This word is known as the head of the phrase. It will be argued later on in this book that the head of phrases such as the postwoman is the determiner and the head of phrases such as on his birthday is the preposition. Thus, we distinguish between determiner phrases (DPs) and preposition phrases (PPs).

2.1.7 Rules

Such rules are known as rewrite rules as they describe how to draw a tree by ‘re-writing’ the symbol on the left of the arrow for the symbols on the right. Thus, if we start with the S at the top of the tree diagram we can rewrite this as a DP and a VP. The VP can be re-written as a verb, a DP and a PP and the PP as a preposition and a DP. The DPs can then be re-written as determiners followed by nouns.

2.1.7 Rules

Although the system of rules in (36) is capable of describing the structures of a good number of English sentences, it is clear that we would need many more rules to attempt to describe the structures of all English sentences. For example, not every DP is made up of a determiner followed by a noun. Some may contain just a determiner, such as this for example, or a determiner, an adjective and a noun, such as a rusty kettle. A DP may indeed contain, amongst other things another sentence, such as the diagnosis that she had flu. It is clear that we would need many rewrite rules to capture all the possibilities for English DPs.

2.3.1 Substitution

As we claimed, the distribution of an element shows us that it has a certain status in the sentence and all elements which have the same distribution will have the same status. This is why we could use observations about distribution to demonstrate the structure of the sentence: the fact that the bull has the same distribution as it shows that the bull is a constituent, specifically a DP as, as argued above, pronouns are determiners. Furthermore, the fact that worried the china-shop owner has the same distribution as charged shows that the former is also a constituent, specifically a VP as charge is a verb. In other words, we can use distributional observations such as these to test the structure of any sentence: for any part of the sentence, if we find it distributes like some element that we know what its categorial status is, then we can assume that that part of the sentence has the same status as that element.

2.3.4 Single-word phrases

Furthermore, while a pronoun is a determiner, it is also a DP in the following sentence:

3.1.1 Rewrite rules and some terminology

Recall from chapter 2, rewrite rules which tell us how structures of various kinds decompose into their constituent parts. The rules in (1) are like these, only far more general. The generality is achieved through the use of category variables, X and Y, which stand for any possible category (nouns, verbs, prepositions, determiners, etc.). Thus these rules tell us how phrases in general are structured, not how particular VPs, PPs or DPs are.

3.1.1 Rewrite rules and some terminology

The specifier of the DP is the possessor and this precedes the D' constituted of the determiner and its complement. The VP in (5) is exemplified in the following sentence:

3.1.3 Heads and Complements

In this structure, off is inserted into the head position of the PP complement of the verb and as this preposition selects for a DP complement (as most of them do), only a determiner could be inserted into the head position of this phrase. The determiner would then impose restrictions on its complement, ensuring this to be an NP and hence only a noun could be inserted into the head of the determiner’s complement. Obviously, this could continue indefinitely, but in this case the process stops at this point as the noun subcategorises for no complement.

3.1.5.1 Adjunction to X-bar

It is clear that the noun is the head of this construction as it can act as the complement of a determiner and determiners take nominal complements, not adjectival ones:

3.1.5.1 Adjunction to X-bar

The bracketed elements in (32a) and (b) have the same distribution and hence we can conclude they have the same categorial status. As this phrase in (32b) contains only a noun, we conclude that it is an NP. In (32c) however, the phrase following the determiner contains only an adjective and is ungrammatical. This clearly has a different distribution to the other two phrases, indicating that the adjective in (32a) is not the head of this phrase.

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

The first consists of a determiner and a noun, which we have so far been describing as a head followed by its complement, in the usual English pattern. The second a pronoun, and we have claimed that pronouns are ‘intransitive’ determiners, i.e. determiners without an NP complement. The third consists of just a proper noun and the last just a plural count noun. These last two examples are puzzling: how can they be considered as DPs when they contain no determiner? Perhaps these are not DPs at all, but simply NPs. But if this is true, as all the examples in (1) have the same distribution, they must all be considered NPs. Thus, the pronoun should be categorised as a noun and the determiner in (1a) is not the head of the phrase, but some other element within the NP, perhaps an adjunct or a specifier (it is on the wrong side to be considered a complement).

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

This proposal might be supported by two further observations. First, note that even when a determiner is present, the noun seems to be the most semantically salient element, suggesting its greater importance:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

2a) refers to something of a ‘socky’ nature and (2b) to an idea. In (2c) we are talking about instances of portraits, not instances of each. The determiners obviously do contribute a meaning, but this seems secondary to the meaning of the noun. From this point of view, then we might claim that the noun should be seen as the more important syntactic element, i.e. the head.

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

A second observation that might support the assumption that the noun and not the determiner is the head of the phrase is the fact that the noun contributes features which play a role in interpreting the meaning of the whole phrase:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

Again, however, this is not an entirely unproblematic assumption. Many determiners carry number features of their own:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

In these cases both the nouns and the determiners are marked for number and so it is difficult to say where the number feature of the whole phrase is projected from. Indeed, even in those cases such as (8a) and (8b) where it looks as though the number is projected from the noun, we could argue that the determiner the is ambiguously marked for singular or plural and, like the other determiners, when it is singular it can only accompany a singular noun and when it is plural it can only accompany a plural noun. The issue therefore rests on which we take to be the head: the determiner or the noun. For this reason, we cannot use these observations to argue in favour of one or the other having head status but we must look elsewhere to resolve the issue.

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

The assumption that the determiner is not the head leads to further problems for the analysis of determiners and pronouns themselves. First consider the determiner. If this is not the head then it is presumably an adjunct or a specifier within the NP. We should therefore expect it to behave as such. Determiners do not appear to be adjoined within the NP as they do not behave like adjectival modifiers, which we have analysed as N' adjuncts in the previous chapter. Adjectives are recursive modifiers of nouns and can normally be arranged in any order, as we might expect of an adjunct:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

Even if we claimed the determiner to be adjoined to the NP rather than the N', so that it would always precede AP adjuncts, which are adjoined to the N', as in (13), the non-recursiveness of determiners would remain a problem:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

A further problem with this analysis is that adjuncts adjoined to XP or X' are phrasal. Only adjuncts adjoined to a head are X⁰ categories. But the determiner looks suspiciously like a word and to analyse it as a phrase by itself begs the question of why determiners never have complements, specifiers or adjuncts of their own:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

This same problem dogs the assumption that determiners are specifiers: the specifier position is a phrasal one, but a determiner does not appear to be more than a word.

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

The assumption that the determiner is the head of the phrase, on the other hand, captures its position perfectly: it precedes the noun because the noun heads its complement and heads precede their complements in English. Comparing the two options, then, it seems that the one in which the determiner is the head is the more straightforward:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

Another problem that arises if we assume that determiners are not heads of phrases is that they do make a contribution to the whole phrase. In chapter 1 we spent some time discussing properties of determiners (section 3.5.2), pointing out that a major contribution determiners make to the phrases that contain them is the definiteness–indefiniteness distinction:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

The phrase in (16a) is indefinite while that in (16b) is definite, obviously as a consequence of the determiner. The noun is the same in both cases and therefore does not seem to contribute to this distinction. But if the determiner is not the head of the phrase, how does it project this property to it? Projection, we showed in the previous chapter, is a property of heads, not adjuncts or specifiers so the fact that determiners do project properties to the phrase is an argument in favour of treating them as heads.

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

Next, consider the status of the pronoun. If this is a determiner heading a DP, its status is quite straightforward; it is simply a head which is the solitary element in the phrase:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

However, the analysis in (17) accounts for the absolute complementary distribution between pronouns and determiners:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

If pronouns are determiners, this observation is accounted for. But if pronouns are nouns something else must be said to account for why they cannot appear with determiners. Some nouns do not sit well with determiners. In English, proper nouns are not usually accompanied by a determiner:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

Yet, in some circumstances we can use determiners with proper nouns:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

Interestingly, even in these situations a pronoun is ungrammatical accompanied by a determiner:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

It seems that the evidence all points to the assumption that pronouns are determiners. But, if the noun is the head of the phrase and not the determiner, how are we to analyse a phrase consisting of just a pronoun as this would appear to be an NP that lacks a noun. This brings us full circle to the observations we started with. Under the proposal that the determiner is the head, there appear to be DPs that lack determiners:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

Now let us consider the empty determiner in (27). At first, we might think that we are facing the same situation here. However, this is not so. Certainly, the main semantic content of the whole phrase is provided by the noun. But this is typical: nouns are the main semantic element in such constructions, even if the determiner is visible. Determiners contribute other semantic aspects, as discussed above. The phrase Jackie is definite, as can be seen by the fact that it cannot sit in the post-verbal position in there sentences (see chapter 1 section 3.5.2 for discussion):

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

This then can be taken as a reason to think that there is a determiner accompanying this noun which is responsible for the definiteness interpretation on the assumption that it is determiners and not nouns which contribute this property:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

This might be extended to other cases of nouns that appear without apparent determiners, as with plural nouns, for example:

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

This suggests that there are two different empty determiners: one which is definite and the other indefinite. The interesting thing is that these empty determiners differ in other ways. The empty definite determiner takes only NP complements headed by proper nouns whereas the empty indefinite determiner takes only NP complements headed by plural nouns. This is perfectly normal behaviour for a head, as heads do place restrictions on their complements.

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

To conclude the present discussion, while it seems that there is no independent evidence that pronouns are accompanied by an empty noun, there is much evidence that proper and plural nouns may be accompanied by empty determiners. This conclusion itself lends support for the claim that the determiner is the head of the phrase and that the noun is not. From this perspective, the noun is the head of its own phrase which sits in the complement position of the determiner.

4.2 The Internal Structure of the DP

Having established the status of the determiner as a head, let us now look at how the DP is arranged.

4.2.1 Determiners and Complements

4.2.2 The Specifier of the DP

However, the problem in viewing the possessor as the specifier of the DP is that this would predict that possessors can appear in front of a determiner, when in actual fact possessors and determiners seem to be in complementary distribution:

4.2.2 The Specifier of the DP

If X-bar theory is correct however, this observation cannot be taken to show what it seems to: i.e. that the specifier and the determiner sit in the same structural position. Words and phrases cannot be in complementary distribution as they cannot appear in the same positions in a phrase. Some other element must appear in complementary distribution with the determiner in (39c), not the possessor. But what?

4.2.2 The Specifier of the DP

The point is, however, that there is a process which takes an independent word and sticks it to the phrase immediately in front of it. If this is what is going on with the possessive construction in English, then the ‘’s’ morpheme must originate as an independent word which sits in a position immediately following the possessor. Given that the word position immediately following the possessor is the determiner, we conclude that the morpheme ‘’s’ must be a determiner. Unlike auxiliaries, this determiner has no uncontracted form and so we never see it occupying the D position. We thus have the following analysis:

4.2.2 The Specifier of the DP

If this analysis can be maintained, we now know why possessors and determiners are in complementary distribution; in fact they are not in complementary distribution but the possessive determiner ‘’s’ is in complementary distribution with other determiners, as we would expect.

4.2.2 The Specifier of the DP

Note that these pronouns have a special genitive form, which demonstrates that this position is one to which genitive Case is assigned. Thus, even if the ‘’s’ morpheme is not the marker of genitive Case, DPs which sit in the specifier of a DP have this Case. The problem is that with pronoun possessors the possessive determiner (the ‘’s’ morpheme) does not appear. This is rather puzzling, especially if this morpheme is nothing to do with genitive Case.

4.2.2 The Specifier of the DP

If nothing is in the determiner position, these observations would be hard to account for. We then have to assume that for some reason when the possessor is a pronoun, the possessive determiner is unpronounced and when it is a non-pronoun it gets pronounced as ‘’s’. As far as I know there is no explanation as to why this should be and so it remains as a descriptive statement at present.

4.2.3 Adjunction within the DP

Adjunction within the DP itself is a rather limited phenomenon. We know that APs and PPs act as modifiers of nouns and adjoin within the NP, but these do not adjoin within the DP ever as can be seen by the fact that they never precede determiners or never modify pronouns:

4.2.3 Adjunction within the DP

Certain adverbs may precede determiners and hence might be analysed as DP adjuncts:

4.2.3 Adjunction within the DP

There are some cases of modification by an adverb, however, that do seem to behave as though the adverb is part of the DP. This mainly takes place with quantificational determiners, the meaning of which is modified by the adverb:

4.3 Multiple Determiners

6.1 The structure of IP

More supporting evidence for the head status of the inflection comes from its relationships to the other clausal elements. As a head we should expect the inflection to impose restrictions on its complement and specifier positions. Of course, we would not expect these to be based on Θ-roles as the inflection is a functional element and plays no role in Θ-role assignment. Instead we would expect these restrictions to be similar to those found within the DP discussed in chapter 3. Recall that determiners always take NP complements and no other phrase can appear in this position. The complement of an inflection is always a verbal phrase, be it vP or VP and again no other phrase can appear in this position. We can make this more precise if we use categorial features to describe the situation. The phrase that sits in the complement position of the inflection must be headed by an element with the categorial features [(–F), –N, +V], that is, by a non-functional verb including V and v. We can therefore suggest a very restrictive template for the lexical entries of all inflections:

6.1 The structure of IP

Inflections also impose restrictions on their subjects. Again these restrictions are not thematic in nature but similar to those imposed by determiners on their specifiers. Recall that only a certain kind of determiner allows a specifier: the possessive determiners. The possessive position is restricted to genitive elements, as shown below:

6.1 The structure of IP

The form of the inflection in (14) depends on properties of the subject. This phenomenon is known as agreement (see chapter 1). In English, agreement is very restricted, visible only in the case of the present tense morpheme and the present and past tense forms of be. We saw in chapter 4 that the possessive determiner also shows a similar pattern, having one form for pronominal possessors and another for non-pronominal possessors:

7.1 The structure of CP

Another claim made in (9) is that the IP is the complement of the complementiser. Can this be substantiated? One obvious relevant observation is that the IP follows the complementiser and as we know complements follow heads in English. Thus the claim that the complementiser is the head and the IP its complement accounts for this fact about English word order without resorting to stipulation. Furthermore, we have seen that functional heads such as determiners and inflections have a very limited range of possible complements: determiners always have NP complements and inflections always have v/VP complements. The element which follows a complementiser is always an IP and so this fits the pattern very well. Finally, note that different complementisers introduce different IPs. If and that both introduce finite IPs, while for introduces a non-finite IP. As heads select for their complements, this is again an indication that the complementisers are heads selecting for different types of IP complements. This is very similar to plural determiners selecting for plural NP complements and singular determiners selecting for singular ones.

7.1 The structure of CP

Another claim made in (9) is that the IP is the complement of the complementiser. Can this be substantiated? One obvious relevant observation is that the IP follows the complementiser and as we know complements follow heads in English. Thus the claim that the complementiser is the head and the IP its complement accounts for this fact about English word order without resorting to stipulation. Furthermore, we have seen that functional heads such as determiners and inflections have a very limited range of possible complements: determiners always have NP complements and inflections always have v/VP complements. The element which follows a complementiser is always an IP and so this fits the pattern very well. Finally, note that different complementisers introduce different IPs. If and that both introduce finite IPs, while for introduces a non-finite IP. As heads select for their complements, this is again an indication that the complementisers are heads selecting for different types of IP complements. This is very similar to plural determiners selecting for plural NP complements and singular determiners selecting for singular ones.

7.3.2 Wh-movement

Wh-elements come in a variety of forms and functions. All of them contain some element that has an interrogative interpretation, which may be a pronoun, a determiner or a degree adverb:

7.3.2 Wh-movement

We have seen in a number of previous places that the head and the specifier have a special relationship. In the IP where the subject sits in the specifier and the agreement morpheme sits in the head position, the two elements ‘agree’ with each other in terms of number and person features. Thus if the subject is a third person singular element, then the agreement will be third person singular and determine that the finite morpheme ‘s’ will show up on the verb. In the DP, the possessor sits in the specifier position and this can only be accompanied by a determiner that ‘agrees’ with it in terms of possession. We might assume therefore that the CP will be no different and that the head and its specifier will enter into an agreement relationship, presumably in terms of the [+wh] feature. So, if the specifier has this feature, so will the head. Of course, if the head has the feature, then it will project it to the CP and this will be interpreted as an interrogative clause, and hence the wh-specifier can indeed influence the interpretation of the clause in a round-about manner:

7.4.1 The position of the relative clause inside the NP

As relative clauses seem to modify nouns we can assume that they occupy a position within the phrase headed by the noun. There is evidence that this is so as the noun and the relative clauses can be pronominalised and coordinated separately from the determiner:

8.3 The Gerund

In this case, the ing element behaves exactly like a noun syntactically. For example it heads a phrase which can be the complement of a determiner. As we know determiners take NP complements, so the ing element must have the category of a noun. A further fact about nouns is that their DP complements cannot be assigned case, which is why there is an of preposition inserted into the structure. With a verb, its light verb will assign Case and hence there is no need to insert of. This can be clearly seen in the different behaviours of verbs and their derived nominal counterparts:

8.3 The Gerund

Verbs head VPs not NPs and so presumably the part of the structure headed by the ing element is a VP. This is where the problems begin. Although a determiner is not possible with these elements:

8.3 The Gerund

But this cannot be correct as determiners take NP complements not VP ones. It seems that the structure needs to be ‘nominalised’ at a point above the verb, to allow it to maintain its verbal properties, but below the VP so that the structure can function as the complement of a determiner.

8.3 The Gerund

A number of consequences follow from this analysis. First, in (91a) as there is no light verb, the DP in the specifier will be Caseless and hence the preposition of will have to be inserted to salvage the structure. The presence of the light verb in (91b) renders this unnecessary as the DP will get Case in the normal way. More interestingly, the subject is present in the structure in (91b) but not in (91a). This does not mean that the subject cannot be introduced in (91a) as it is perfectly possible to have a possessive argument introduced into the NP/DP structure under normal circumstances, so there is no reason why it could not happen here. However, the point is that, as is usually the case with nouns, this will be optional and therefore the possessor/agent may or may not appear. When there is no possessor, there can be a determiner and when there is a possessor there can be no determiner, as the two are in complementary distribution:

8.3 The Gerund

However, with the presence of the light verb in (91b), the agent is obligatory. As usual, it will have to move to get Case and presumably the place it moves to is the specifier of the DP, i.e. the genitive position. For this reason, a standard determiner will not be possible with this kind of gerund:

8.3 The Gerund

However, such gerunds are standardly assumed to have PRO subjects and hence the subject position is not empty and we can account for why the determiner is impossible. In such gerunds we might suppose that the ing morpheme is added to the structure quite high, perhaps above the tense element. If we further assume that it is a non-finite tense which is responsible for assigning the Null Case borne by PRO we can account for why it is possible to have a PRO subject in a gerund.