Odile,
    I'm not comfortable talking about how to deal with these in Reed/Kellog diagrams, but I may be able to suggest a path.
   quite often, these are referred to as "wh" pronouns, since most start with wh--who, what, where, when ,why. They float to the head of the structure they are a part of (usually a noun clause or content clause, though you give infinitive clause examples.) This is similar to the way they work in what are often called "wh" questions (as opposed to yes/no questions.)

   Who did it? What did she do? when did she do it? How did she do it? why did she do it?
   I know who did it. I know what she did. I wonder how she did it. I understand why she did it,

    As a pronoun, it would take on the grammatical role of what it replaces in the clause. "How" would have an adverb role.. ( of course, that means you have a view of pronoun that is wide enough to include standing in for something other than a noun phrase.)
   The reason this can follow "of" is because noun clauses (content clauses) can act as object of a preposition. "I wrote a book about how to make money in the stock market." "I based my decision on what she told me."  The noun clause structure allows whatever is thematically emphasized to float to the head of the clause.
   This would be true even if the clause were subject of the sentence.
   "How she did it still baffles us." "Why she did it is anybody's guess."

Craig
________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Odile Sullivan-Tarazi [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 12:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: The construction "of how . . ."

Related to my question on construing "how to" and "what to," there's this: if "how" is always an adverb, how can it function as the first word in a phrase governed by a preposition?

I think this is what first got me started on the whole issue. The construction that begins "of how" is not uncommon —


      The inside story of how the war on terror turned into a war on American ideals

      In search of how people change

      The science of how names shape us

      The science of how applause spreads in an audience

      The secrets of how to retire happy

      The art of how to train your dragon

      The basics of how to read a film


What follows a preposition functions as the object of that preposition. Is the "how" functioning as an adverb within this noun phrase object? Or is it contributing more directly to the character of this phrase as nominal?

Somehow, I'm not seeing a clear path through this one. I am instead wandering the alleyways of uncertainty and muddled thinking.



Odile
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