Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

ARGUMENT LINKING IN DERIVED NOMINALS 391

this of does not mark an argument of the V/vN, but has an adjunct — i.e.
predicative — role (cf. Jolly 1987: 98) and frequently may be alternated
with from.

(19) a. John died of / from malaria.

b. the death of John of / from malaria

 John's death of / from malaria

John, the U patient of die in (19a), is linked in (19b) to the vN's of-marked
direct-core-argument position. No ungrammaticality arises with the use of
the second of because it is not the direct-argument marker, but a predica­
tive marker indicating "source." In (19c), John is topicalized as an LDP
NP, and the vNP includes no direct core argument.
A third of which must be distinguished from the nominal's direct-argu­
ment marker is the of which marks a postnominal possessessor, as in the
design of the building. Notice that this construction cannot be interpreta-
tionally correlated with "X" designed the building, but with The building
has a design. That is, in the design of the building, design cannot be inter­
preted as a process vN corresponding in meaning to the ACM verb design.
Rather, it is interpretable as a noun corresponding to other nouns like pat­
tern or form. This is a clear example of what Anderson (1979) refers to as a
gap in the NP system. That is, design has been so restricted to a particular
nonaction reading that in a process nominal corresponding in meaning to
Jess designed the building, only an -ing form can be used as the vNP's
nominalized-verb head: Jess's designing of the building (cf. 1.1 for discus­
sion of noncontrastive action nominals). In the design of the building, then,
of marks the building as the possessor of the design (a possessed attribute of
the building); it does not mark the building as a direct argument.^17 In 2.3.2,
the possessive construction will be considered in more detail as it relates to
direct argument constructions in state-based nominals and in a particular
set of accomplishment-based nominals.
Another of found in nominals can be identified as a "compositional
of." As the label implies, this of marks NPs (apparently always generic)
which describe the physical or abstract composition of the NP they modify.
Examples of constructions containing compositional of s are:
(20) a. artifacts of wood
b. the book of poems
 a time of unhappiness
d. the displays of books