Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: Er-nominalisations which take CP complements are rare in English, but possible. A common construction involving one isto be a firm believer that….I propose that the behaviour of CP-takinger-nominalisations (‘CoPTErs’) results from a tension. On the one hand, they areArgument Structure Nominalsin the sense of Grimshaw (1990), and they ‘inherit’ the argument-taking properties of their parent verb. So if the parent verbbelievecan take a CP argument, the correspondinger-nominalisationbelievershould be able to take a CP argument too. On the other hand, they are nouns. And since Stowell (1981), a long line of work has argued that a noun simply cannot take a CP as an argument. I argue that this tension is usually fatal, which is why CoPTErs are fairly unacceptable when placed in argument positions. It's only when they are used aspredicatenouns that they become acceptable – but even then, the CP does not pattern like a true argument of the noun. I sketch a possible analysis, in which the CP complement to a CoPTEr adjoins to the predication and binds a variable (of category D) in the CoPTEr's argument position.
Source: English Language and Linguistics
Author: MATTHEW TYLER
Institution: University of Cambridge
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,255
OpenAlex ID: W4308203569