I prefer and I'd rather

This week, my Japanese conversation partner asked me to explain the usage of "I prefer". It
sounds like it ought to be easyI was so confident that I figured I'd also explain "I'd rather"
while I was at it. However, the complexity of the rules for these constructions surprised me.
[Warning: many numbered sentences ahead.]
Let's start with "prefer". You can say:
(1) I prefer chocolate
(2) I prefer to eat chocolate
Not much interesting there. It's more complicated with alternatives. You can say:
(3) I prefer chocolate to vanilla
(4) I prefer chocolate over vanilla
(5) I prefer chocolate rather than vanilla
(6) I prefer chocolate instead of vanilla
but not:
(7) * I prefer chocolate than vanilla

(this is relevant later...)

So, we can construct alternative preferences with noun phrases using "to", "over", "rather than",
and "instead of" to connect the alternatives. Fine so far. "Prefer" can also take various kinds of
verb phrases (or possibly clauses, depending on your syntactic bentthat's between you and your
God). Here's what we can do with the progressive participle:
(8) I prefer eating to sleeping
(9) I prefer eating over sleeping
(10) I prefer eating rather than sleeping
(11) I prefer eating instead of sleeping
(12) * I prefer eating than sleeping
This is all nice and consistent with the noun phrases above. Let's try to plug in some finite and
infinitive verbs and see what happens:
(11) * I prefer eat
(12) I prefer to eat
(13) * I prefer eat to sleep
(14) * I prefer to eat to to sleep
(15) * I prefer eat over sleep
(16) * I prefer to eat over to sleep
(17) * I prefer eat rather than sleep
(18) ? I prefer to eat rather than to sleep

(19) * I prefer eat instead of sleep

(20) ? I prefer to eat instead of to sleep
Hmm, that didn't go well at all. "Prefer" definitely doesn't take a finite verb phrase, and none of
the ways I tried above allowed alternatives in the infinitive. There's something funny going on
here, and I've got some idea what it might be. It looks like "rather than" and "instead of" can
appear in more contexts that we're considering here:
(21) I ate chocolate rather than vanilla
(22) I ate chocolate instead of vanilla
(23) * I ate chocolate to vanilla
(24) * I ate chocolate over vanilla (not with the alternatives reading, anyway)
So "A rather than B" and "A instead of B" appear to be separate constructions that aren't specially
selected by the verb "prefer". They don't take an infinitive for B, but noun phrases and
progressive participles work OKthat's how we can fix sentences (18) and (20) above:
(18') I prefer to eat rather than sleeping
(20') I prefer to eat instead of sleeping
Since these two constructions appear to be an independent phenomenon, let's put them aside.
So far, what do we know? The verb "prefer" can take, as a complement: (a) a noun phrase, (b) a
progressive verb phrase, or (c) a non-finite verb phrase, but not a finite one. It can also take a pair
of alternatives connected by "to" or "over" as long as they're noun phrases or progressive verb
phrases, but not finite or infinitive verb phrases. That's not very consistent, but there it is.
After this mess, I then tried to explain "I'd rather". It means roughly the same thing, but it's got a
whole different set of rules. First, note that it doesn't like noun phrases, progressive participles, or
infinitive verb phrases:
(25) * I'd rather chocolate
(26) * I'd rather eating chocolate
(27) * I'd rather to eat chocolate
It only likes finite verb phrases:
(28) I'd rather eat chocolate
And it doesn't take alternatives with either "to" or "over":
(29) * I'd rather eat to sleep
(30) * I'd rather eat over sleep
We ought to be able to use those compound verb phrases from above, though, right? The ones
with "instead of" and "rather than"? Sort of:

(31) I'd rather eat instead of sleeping

(32) ? I'd rather eat rather than sleeping
Hmm, "rather...rather" doesn't sound very good to me, but I'm not sure it's ungrammatical (how
many angels did you say?). Oh, and remember sentence (7) above? Here's where we can use
"than":
(33) I'd rather eat than sleep
(34) * I'd rather eat than sleeping
Finally, in case you believed me when I said that those "instead of" complements are independent
constructions that need a noun phrase or a progressive verb phrase, watch this:
(35) I'd rather eat instead of sleep
A finite verb. That's the cherry on top.
Did you make it this far? Were you expecting a coherent analysis at the end? Sorry, this is just a
blog. If you want answers, you'll have to wait for the pay site to go up. Here's the free version:
these verbs have tricky selectional restrictions, and I'm either embarrassed or perversely pleased
to have such creatures living in my mental lexiconI haven't decided yet.
[Aside, before anybody mentions it: yes, I ignored sentences like "I prefer him to leave" and "I'd
rather he left". Do you really want me to mention small clauses? Well, do you, punk?
Feel free to quibble about the stars, thoughall the judgments above are mine.]