Títol: "POSS-ing and ACC-ing as complement of with(out)" a càrrec de Zi Huang (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

Data: dijous 14 de gener del 2021

Hora: 12.00 hores

Accés: en línia, amb Collaborate

(enllaç: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/cbd918ec0de7403f94ba44b0a67b7a2d)
 

Resum: 

English has two types of gerunds that take direct complements: POSS-ing (Clay's/his winning the match) and ACC-ing (Clay/him winning the match). Theories of English gerunds differ in whether POSS-ing and ACC-ing are interpreted in the same way. In this talk, I will present data from the BNC which involve POSS-ing and ACC-ing as complement of with(out). While ACC-ing is compatible with both with and without, there is an asymmetry in the distribution of POSS-ing as complement of without and with:

(1) She had been suddenly taken to hospital

     a. without Darren knowing why/Darren's knowing why

     b. with Darren being fully informed/#Darren's being fully informed

I first provide an interpretation for without + POSS-ing using generic incausality (Zieleke 2020). Then I argue that the asymmetry in (1) can be attributed to different referential properties of the two gerunds: because it contains a possessive structure, POSS-ing is anaphoric and cannot be anchored to the time of the matrix clause; ACC-ing is non-anaphoric and can be anchored to matrix tense. This distinction supports those analyses that assign different interpretations to POSS-ing and ACC-ing, like Portner (1992) and Grimm & McNally (2015).