The VP within Process Nominals: Evidence from Adverbs and the VP Anaphor Do-So

Recent accounts of process nominals postulate a VP within the nominalized structure. A verb becomes a nominal by a head raising operation to a nominal affix. This view contrasts with analyses of process nominals as (pure) nominals with partial verbal properties, originally due to Chomsky (1970). Contributing to this debate, we will argue that direct evidence indicates that English process nominals contain a VP. Our evidence comes from the distribution of adverbs on the one hand, and from the presence of the VP anaphor do so in process nominals on the other. We show that a portion of the verbal extended projection specifically excluding IP or CP is present in process nominals. An array of word order facts about process nominals falls into place when we further assume that the verb is raised from VP over the subject, the object, and adverbs, adjoining to a nominal affix. Our analysis moreover adds to the evidence for functional structure above VP and supports particular claims about the syntax-morphology interface.

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