Verb phrases and Gerund phrases. Sentence structure.

CalifJim

anonymousAn important point here is that "Jeff" is a raised object since the verb that "Jeff" relates to syntactically is higher in the constituent structure than the one it relates to semantically.

But we don't know that "Jeff" is an object at all in this sentence (syntactically) unless we consider the pronomialized version, where "Jeff" becomes "him", which is marked for object case. Is that right?

It seems to me that this object marking is just as important as, if not more important than, the "can make it passive" argument. No?

CJ

Being the boss made Jeff feel uneasy.

It's a basic fact of grammar that to-infinitivals containing a subject are always introduced by the subordinator "for". This subordinator is not present in the OP's example, so that alone is enough to tell us that "Jeff" cannot be the syntactic subject of the subordinate clause.

Further evidence that "Jeff" is matrix object comes from several tests. For example, in general, adjuncts cannot occur between a verb and its direct object, but they are permitted between a verb and a clausal complement:

*We expected all along an improvement.

We expected all along that things would improve.

In the catenative construction such an adjunct can follow the matrix verb in the construction with “for” but not in the one without:

I’d prefer if at all possible for you to do it tomorrow.

*I’d prefer if at all possible you to do it tomorrow.

Note that if we drop if at all possible both versions are well formed.

And in the OP’s example we cannot say *Being the boss made always Jeff feel uneasy.