The significance of の in this sentence

Question

I've come across the title of this book:

文句の付けようがないラブコメ

And while i do understand the meaning, I don't quite get the usage of の there. Or, in other words why it is used over を. Any help would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

文句の付けようがないラブコメ and 文句を付けようがないラブコメ are both fine and mean the same thing.

The former is fine simply because verb-stem + よう works like a noun, just as many other words after a verb forms a noun phrase (e.g. 寿司の食べ方を学ぶ, お金の使い過ぎを反省する). Of course you can use の to connect two nouns.

I'm rather having trouble understanding why the latter is fine at the same time...usually we cannot modify a noun with を. Anyway, this verb-stem + よう also takes を and other adverbial modifiers, too.

• 手の出しようがない。 = 手を出しようがない。
  There's nothing we can do.
• お礼の言いようがありません。 = お礼を言いようがありません。
  I can't thank you enough.
• 東京へ(は)行きようがない。
  There's no way I can go to Tokyo (due to an accident, etc).
• 健康に(は)暮らしようがない。
  There's no way I can live healthily.

It seems to me like verb-stem + よう sometimes works like a noun and sometimes like a verb, but I don't know if this is the correct way to explain this. I hope someone will post an authoritative reference.