Nominalization Facts

The first bit of evidence for compared-to phrases' structural superiority over thematic-PP's and for-PP's comes from nominalization facts. Gradable adjectives can typically be nominalized as in (116).

26 _{This proposal is consistent with Baker (2003), where adjectives are treated as zero}

(116) patient  patience happy  happiness sad  sadness polite  politeness jealous  jealousy etc.

In an adjective's nominalized form, some of its low-hanging syntactic arguments can be presented inside the derived NP. In (117) and (118), it is shown that thematic-PPs and for-PP's can easily appear within the derived NP unchanged.

(117) a. John's patience with Mary should be held up as an example for all teachers.

b. Bill's happiness with his job was a key factor in deciding not to move. c. Our jealousy of Mary astonished her.

(118) a. At the meeting, we discussed John's patience for a doctor.

b. Bill's politeness for a bank teller was evident in the way he treated me. c. I was astonished at Mary's jealousy for a twenty-year old.

But compared-to phrases cannot appear inside the NP as shown by the oddness of (119)a.

(119) a. *At the meeting, we will discuss John's patience compared to Bill. b. At the meeting, we discussed John's patience compared to Bill's.

The oddness goes away (119)b when the complement of the compared-to phrase is an elided derived NP like the one being modified (120).

(120) …John's patience compared to Bill's patience.

The point is that compared-to phrases cannot be included inside the derived NP in the same form that they appear in when they are inside the gradable adjective phrase like thematic-PP's and for-PP's can. To my knowledge, there is not a theory of AP nominalization. But I will briefly speculate as to how this might be done in a way that explains the difference between compared-to phrases on the one hand, and thematic-PP's and for-PP's on the other.

Let's say that the nominalization of an AP targets a specific level of structure. Everything below that target level is (or can be) included inside the nominal as arguments. Everything above that target level cannot appear inside the nominal. Given this type of nominalization analysis, an argument that compared-to phrases are structurally higher than thematic-PP's and for-PP's presents itself. That is, for-PP's and thematic-PP's are included in the nominalization level because they are closer to the adjective head, but compared-to phrases are not because they are further away. This predicts that when a gerund is created out of a gradable adjective, the compared-

to phrase should be allowed inside the nominal unchanged, and that is exactly what

we find as in (121)a. Compare this to the non-gerund in (121)b.

(121) a. At the meeting, we will discuss John's being patient compared to Bill. b. *At the meeting, we will discuss John's patience compared to Bill.

Now, we can say that the example in (119)b is acceptable because the

compared-to phrase is attached outside the NP. One reason to think that the compared-to phrase in derived nominals is outside the NP concerns the elliptical

structure of (119)b. The ellipsis must be resolved, and if the compared-to phrase were included inside the NP, then we run into the classic infinite regression problem. Consider the structure in (122) where the compared-to phrase is part of the NP.

(122) a. John's patience compared to Mary's

b. [DP John's [NP patience [ compared to Mary's [ ∅ ]]]

If the ellipsis is resolved with the NP, then this NP includes the ellipsis site.

(123) [DP John's [NP patience [ compared to Mary's [NP patience [ compared to

Mary's [ ∅ ]]]]]]

But if the compared-to phrase is outside the NP, it can be resolved without infinite regress.

(124) a. [DP John's [NP patience] [ compared to Mary's [ ∅ ]]]

b. [DP John's [NP patience] [ compared to Mary's [NP patience]]]

There is another possible way out of infinite regress problem. Yoshida (2005) suggests that phrases inside NP's can extrapose. If this is so, then the compared-to phrase could start out inside the NP and extrapose to a higher position. But if this is possible, then we wouldn't expect the asymmetry that we find with for-PP's. The reason that nominalization is interesting here is because compared-to phrases take a different form than their adjectival counterparts while for-PP's don't. If compared-to phrases and for-PP's were both generated inside the derived nominal, we would expect the for-PP to express its complement in the same way (or at least, optionally allow it). It is possible for a for-PP to have a complement of this form, including allowing ellipsis, as in (125).

(125) John's patience is quite extraordinary for a boy's (patience).

If compared-to phrases of the type in (119)b were generated inside the NP, we would expect sentences like (126) to be acceptable.

The infinite regress generated by phrasal structure like in (126) this would be solved by extraposition of the type under consideration here for compared-to. Since it is apparently not available for for-PP's, I will conclude that it is not available for

compared-to phrases either, and compared-to phrases must be outside the NP to begin

with. So, while compared-to phrases cannot occur inside derived nominals, thematic- PP's and for-PP's can (in fact, they must). This indicates that compared-to phrases are higher than thematic-PP's and for-PP's.