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Other Nominals

We have yet to deal with two important sets of words that can be used in nominal functions like subject and object: the WH-pronouns used to make WH-clauses and present participles functioning as gerunds.

WH-Clauses. We have seen that the WH-pronouns which introduce relative clauses can also introduce nominal relative clauses. In the same way, the other WH-pronouns which introduce interrogative sentences can also introduce clauses serving as subjects and objects. These WH-clauses are often grouped with that-clauses as noun clauses. All of the interrogative pronouns can be used this way, including how, which again counts as an honorary WH-pronoun:.

(1) How to get there puzzles me.

(2) I don't know how to get there.

(3) What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

(4) I told your momma what you did.

(5) When Ted came here is a state secret.

(6) No one knows when Ted came here.

(7) Where it's gone to puzzles me.

(8) I don't know where it's gone to.

These clauses can also appear occasionally as complements of prepositions, though most such cases can be explained as multi-word verbs:

(9) He is aware of what happened.

(10) The committee looked at why Ted came.

When used as subjects, nominal WH-clauses positively invite confusion with interrogative sentences. If necessary, they can be extraposed, leaving behind the same kind of dummy subject it as with extraposed that- clauses, though such structures are unlovely in themselves:

(11) It beats me how to get there.

(12) It is unclear what he meant by that.

(13) It is unknown when he will come back.

(14) It was a puzzle where he had been.

Other sources of confusion are that many of the same WH-pronouns can be used as subordinating conjunctions introducing adverbial clauses and that some can serve as relative adverbs introducing postmodifying relative clauses in noun phrases. In sentence (15) below, the when clause is a subordinate clause. In sentence (16), it is a relative clause, but in sentence (17) it is a noun complement.

(15) The skies will be brighter when he comes.

(16) The time when he will come is not known.

(17) I have no idea when he will come.

Gerunds and Gerund Phrases. Present participles can also be used as nominals. In this usage, they are known as gerunds, and some traditional grammars are very insistent on reserving the term "participle" for their adjectival use. For safety's sake, learn to call uses like the following "gerund":

(18) Listening is the key.

(19) Jogging is good for you.

(20) He enjoys dancing.

When gerunds come with subject or complements or adjunct adverbials, we have a gerund phrase. In sentence (21), for example, the simple subject is the gerund thanking, and mothers is its complement in the gerund phrase. If we aren't careful, it can be easy to confuse a gerund phrase like that in (21) below for a participial modifier like doting in sentence (22), where the simple subject of the sentence is mothers:

(21) Thanking mothers is the purpose of Mother's Day.

(22) Doting mothers make a teacher's life hard.

Gerunds and gerund phrases are tense-less predicates (VPs) doing the work of a noun phrase. We can also think of them as underlying clauses, since there is usually an implicit subject. If the subject is expressed it can be placed in either the possessive or objective case--in nouns this only means the lack of the possessive marker. In the pairs below, the first sentence shows the possessive case for the gerund phrases's subject, and the second sentence, the objective case:

(23)	(a) Our thanking our mothers is the purpose of Mother's Day.
	(b) Us thanking our mothers is the purpose of Mother's Day.
(24)	(a) Buffy's killing vampires pleased her doting mother.
	(b) Buffy killing vampires pleased her doting mother.

We can use a simplified PS-tree for gerund phrases:

Exercise 1: Adjectival, Adverbial, Nominal: A Review We put words into a set of categories called parts of speech, and do so by looking at their usual meaning, their inflections, and their characteristic functions. Nouns name things, take plural and genitive inflections, and most often serve as subjects and objects. Adjectives are qualities or attributes, take the comparative and superlative, and usually modify nouns, either as premodifiers or as subject complements. The various kinds of adverbs answer questions like where, when, or how much, also take the comparative and superlative, and are found modifying just about everything else. But we have also seen that various phrases and clauses can do the work of our usual parts of speech. Postmodifying relative clauses are adjectival; many adverbials are expressed as prepositional phrases; and we have just gone over several kinds of nominal expressions. In the following sentences, say whether the underlined phrase or clause is A) an adjectival, B) an adverbial, or C) a nominal 1.01 Beverly was afraid of whoever had sent her the letter. 1.02 Fish with primitive hands were our ancestors. 1.03 Goldilocks looked at the dishes which had been laid out on the table. 1.04 Guards patrolling the border report no special activity. 1.05 He acted as though he had license to kill. 1.06 Henry knows where you keep your old Playboys. 1.07 Kobe gave his wife a huge diamond to get her forgiveness. 1.08 Men threatened by strong women dominate radio talk shows. 1.09 My baby told me that she loves me. 1.10 No one bothers me when I am reading. 1.11 Some one is getting a little bit impatient. 1.12 The tax cuts were especially good for the rich. 1.13 To dance in the streets makes me happy. 1.14 Under the boardwalk we were having some fun. 1.15 Walking the dog is good exercise. 1.16 We had dinner after the dance.

Just for the Record. Participial phrases can also serve as sentence adverbials (disjuncts):

(25) Speaking frankly, I'm disappointed

When the subjects of such phrases are given, they are generally uninflected, yielding a rather formal construction sometimes known as an absolute clause, which we'll discuss a bit later.

How Much of This Will be on the Test? Phrases headed by the present participle and the past participle can serve in various sentence functions. When it serves nominal functions like subject we call the present participle a gerund and the phrase a gerund phrase. Clauses headed by WH-words other than relative pronouns can also serve as nominals, and we should be prepared to recognize them. For these and for some other nominals, we need to be able to identify the kind of sentence function being served--adjectival, adverbial, nominal.