Problem 8.2

A.

The tree for sentence (1a) looks like this:

Case assigment to the subject of the gerund "Kim" here is by the possessive determiner in a Spec-Head configuration. "Hiring" is a noun, as can be seen from the fact that it is modified by an adjective. The DP dominating the whole gerund has its case licensed by the preposition "of." One question here is whether "Kim" should be generated in Spec,DP or moved from Spec,NP to Spec,DP.

The tree for sentence (1b) looks like this:

Case licensing of the subject of the gerund "Kim" here is by the possessive determiner in a Spec-Head configuration. "Hiring" is a verb, as can be seen from the fact that it is modified by an adverb, so we have to say that the possessive determiner can take a VP complement. "Kim" can be assumed to move from Spec,VP to Spec,DP to have its case licensed. Again, the DP dominating the whole gerund has its case licensed by the preposition "of."

The tree for sentence (2a) looks like this:

Case licensing of the subject of the gerund "Kim" here is by the preposition "of" in a Head-Spec configuration. The whole gerund is a VP and doesn't itself need case licensing.

The tree for sentence (2b) looks like this:

Case licensing of the subject of the gerund "there" here is by the preposition "about" in a Head-Spec configuration.

The tree for sentence (2c) looks like this:

Case licensing of the subject of the gerund "them" here is by the verb "watched" in a Head-Spec configuration.

B. (3a) is ungrammatical because "hiring" has contradictory part of speech requirements. It must be a noun because it is modified by an adjective but it must be a verb because it takes a direct object for which it must license case. (3b) is ungrammatical because the preposition "of" has to license case both for "Kim" and for the noun "hiring," in violation of the biuniqueness condition.

C. The gerund subjects in (4) must be case-licensed but there is no overt licensor. Hence, we have to postulate one. It could be either a zero complementizer or a zero I(nflection) head. This empty licensor will not be available in (5) because the presence of the adjective and prepositional complement show that the gerund is a noun, not a verb. Nouns cannot serve as complements to C or I.

D. The addition of an empty C or I will have no effect on the status of the examples in (3). In these examples "hiring" must be a noun since it is modified by an adjectives. Hence, no C or I can be present and the (un)grammaticality of the examples must depend on the well-formedness conditions on gerunds with noun rather than verb heads.