In
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, nominalization or nominalisation is the use of a word that is not a noun (e.g., a
verb
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
, an
adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Tra ...
or an
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
) as a
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
, or as the
head
A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may ...
of a
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
. This change in functional category can occur through
morphological transformation, but it does not always. Nominalization can refer, for instance, to the process of producing a noun from another
part of speech
In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are assi ...
by adding a
derivational affix
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ar ...
(e.g., the noun ''legalization'' from the verb ''legalize''), but it can also refer to the complex noun that is formed as a result.
Nominalization is also known as "nouning".
Some languages simply allow verbs to be used as nouns without
inflection
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defin ...
al difference (
conversion
Conversion or convert may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman''
* "Conversion" (''Stargate Atlantis''), an episode of the television series
* "The Conversion" ...
or zero derivation), while others require some form of
morphological transformation.
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
has cases of both.
Nominalization is a
natural part of language, but some instances are more noticeable than others. Writing advice sometimes focuses on avoiding overuse of nominalization.
In various languages
English nominalization
There are two types of nominalization that occur in English. The first requires the addition of a
derivational suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
to a word to create a noun. In other cases, English uses the same word as a noun without any additional morphology. This second process is referred to as
zero-derivation
In linguistics, conversion, also called zero derivation or null derivation, is a kind of word formation involving the creation of a word (of a new word class) from an existing word (of a different word class) without any change in form, which is ...
.
Derivational morphology and nominalization
Derivational morphology
Morphological derivation, in linguistics, is the process of forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix, such as For example, ''unhappy'' and ''happiness'' derive from the root word ''happy.''
It is differentiat ...
is a process by which a grammatical expression is turned into a
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
. For example, in the sentence "Combine the two chemicals," ''combine'' acts as a verb. This can be turned into a noun via the addition of the suffix''-ation'', as in "The experiment involved the ''combination'' of the two chemicals." An especially common case of verbs being used as nouns is the addition of the suffix ''-ing'', known in English as a
gerund
In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiable ...
.
Zero-derivation nominalization
Some verbs and adjectives in English can be used directly as nouns without the addition of a derivational suffix, depending on the syntax of a sentence.
Stress- and pronunciation-dependent nominalization
In addition to true zero-derivation, English also has a number of words which, depending on changes in pronunciation (typically syllable stress), can change functional category to either act as a noun or a verb. One such type, which is rather pervasive, is the change in stress placement from the final syllable of the word to the first syllable (see
Initial-stress-derived noun
Initial-stress derivation is a phonological process in English that moves stress to the first syllable of verbs when they are used as nouns or adjectives. (This is an example of a suprafix.) This process can be found in the case of several dozen ve ...
).
An additional case is seen with the verb ''use'', which has a different pronunciation when used as a noun. The nominal case of use has a word final voiceless alveolar fricative /s/, while the verbal case of use has a word final voiced alveolar fricative, /z/. Which of two sounds is pronounced is a signal, in addition to the syntactic structure and semantics, as to the lexical category of the word use in the context of the sentence.
In some circumstances, adjectives can also have nominal use, as in ''the poor'' to mean poor people in general. See
nominalized adjective
A nominalized adjective is an adjective that has undergone nominalization, and is thus used as a noun. In ''the rich and the poor'', the adjectives ''rich'' and ''poor'' function as nouns denoting people who are rich and poor respectively.
In En ...
.
Other Indo-European languages
Many Indo-European languages have separate
inflection
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defin ...
al morphology for nouns, verbs, and adjectives, but often this is no impediment to nominalization, as the
root
In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...
or
stem
Stem or STEM may refer to:
Plant structures
* Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang
* Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure
* Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
of the adjective is readily stripped of its adjectival inflections and bedecked with nominal inflections—sometimes even with dedicated nominalizing suffixes. For example,
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
has a number of nominalization suffixes, and some of these suffixes have been borrowed into English, either directly or through
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
. Other examples can be seen in German—such as the subtle inflectional differences between ''deutsch'' (adj) and ''Deutsch'' (noun) across genders, numbers, and cases—although which
lexical category
In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are ass ...
came first may be moot. Spanish and Portuguese, whose ''o/os/a/as'' inflections commonly mark both adjectives and nouns, shows a very permeable boundary as many roots straddle the lexical categories of adjective and noun (with little or no inflectional difference).
Chinese
In all
varieties of Chinese
Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of main ...
,
particle
In the Outline of physical science, physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small wikt:local, localized physical body, object which can be described by several physical property, physical or chemical property, chemical ...
s are used to nominalize verbs and adjectives. In Mandarin, the most common is 的 ''de'', which is attached to both verbs and adjectives. For example, 吃 ''chī'' (to eat) becomes 吃的 ''chīde'' (that which is eaten). Cantonese uses 嘅 ''ge'' in the same capacity, while Minnan uses ''ê''.
Two other particles, found throughout the Chinese varieties, are used to explicitly indicate the nominalized noun as being either the agent or patient of the verb being nominalized. 所 (''suǒ'' in Mandarin) is attached before the verb to indicate patient, e.g. 吃 (to eat) becomes 所吃 (that which is eaten), and 者 (''zhě'' in Mandarin) are attached after the verb to indicate agent, e.g. 吃 (to eat) becomes 吃者 (he who eats). Both particles date from
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning
"literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning
"literar ...
and retain limited
productivity
Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...
in modern Chinese varieties.
There are also many words with zero-derivation. For instance, 教育 ''jiàoyù'' is both verb (to educate) and noun (education). Other cases include 变化 ''biànhuà'' (v. to change; n. change), 保护 ''bǎohù'' (v. to protect; n. protection), 恐惧 ''kǒngjù'' (v. to fear; n. fear; adj. fearful), etc.
Vietnamese
In
Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
, nominalization is often implicit with zero derivation, but in formal contexts or where there is a potential for ambiguity, a word can be nominalized by prepending a
classifier. and are the most general classifiers used to nominalize verbs and adjectives, respectively. Other nominalizing classifiers include , , and .
Tibeto-Burman
Nominalization is a pervasive process across
Tibeto-Burman languages
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people speak ...
. In
Bodic languages
The Tibeto-Kanauri languages, also called Bodic, Bodish–Himalayish, and Western Tibeto-Burman, are a proposed intermediate level of classification of the Sino-Tibetan languages, centered on the Tibetic languages and the Kinnauri dialect cluste ...
nominalization serves a variety of functions, including the formation of
complement clause
In grammar, a complement is a word, phrase, or clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a given expression. Complements are often also arguments (expressions that help complete the meaning of a predicate).
Predicative, subject and obj ...
s and
relative clause
A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phraseRodney D. Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, ''A Student's Introduction to English Grammar'', CUP 2005, p. 183ff. and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments ...
s.
Japanese
Japanese grammar
Japanese is an agglutinative, synthetic, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with parti ...
makes frequent use of nominalization (instead of
relative pronoun
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. It serves the purpose of conjoining modifying information about an antecedent referent.
An example is the word ''which'' in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the ...
s) via several
particles
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, from su ...
such as
の ''no'',
もの ''mono'' and こと ''koto''. In
Old Japanese
is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial.
Old Jap ...
, nouns were created by replacing the final vowel, such as mura(村, village) created from muru(群る, gather), though this type of noun formation is obsolete.
Dual nature of syntactic nominalization
Syntactic nominals share some properties with lexically-derived nominals, they must be formed in the syntactic components, consisting of verbal projections. The duality of nominalization in
Japanese grammar
Japanese is an agglutinative, synthetic, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with parti ...
brings up the issue of whether or not VP (vP) should be postulated for the projection of arguments inside the nominal.
Nominal and verbal properties in Japanese
Causative, passive, and honorific verb marking inside kata-nominals provide evidence that a vP structure should be postulated.
-kata (-方) ‘way’ suffixed to the “renyookei” (adverbial) form of a verb:
The syntactic nominals that are shared with ordinary
lexical
Lexical may refer to:
Linguistics
* Lexical corpus or lexis, a complete set of all words in a language
* Lexical item, a basic unit of lexicographical classification
* Lexicon, the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge
* Lexical ...
nominals
Nominalized versions
The arguments of syntactic nominals, just like those of lexical nominals, cannot be marked with a nominative,
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
or
dative case
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a ...
. Following are not attested forms in Japanese.
The arguments of these nominals, although both subjects and objects are marked only with
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
cases.
As proven above,
syntactic
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), ...
and
lexical
Lexical may refer to:
Linguistics
* Lexical corpus or lexis, a complete set of all words in a language
* Lexical item, a basic unit of lexicographical classification
* Lexicon, the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge
* Lexical ...
nominals share some structural similarities. Further analysis reveals that syntactic and
constituent (linguistics)
In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that function as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The constituent structure of sentences is identified using ''tests for constituents''. These tests apply to a portio ...
at the sentential level are similar as well.
This proposes that syntactic nominals are produced at the syntactic level and it can be applied to any clause type. Lexical nominals are created by the lexicon which limits the clauses in which they can be applied.
Hawaiian
In
Hawaiian, the particle ''ʻana'' is used to nominalize. For example, "hele ʻana" is Hawaiian for "coming." Hence, "his coming" is "kona hele ʻana."
Zero-derivation in other languages
A few languages allow finite clauses to be nominalized without morphological transformation. For instance in Eastern
Shina
Shina may refer to:
* Shina language, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan
* Shina people, a Dardic ethnic group in Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan
People named Shina
* Shina Matsudo (born 1973), Japanese freestyle swimmer
* ...
(Gultari) the finite clause
o buje-m
O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), plu ...
'I will go' can appear as the nominalized object of the postposition
jo'from' with no modification in form:
Syntactic analyses
Introduction to syntactic analyses
The syntactic analysis of nominalization continues to play an important in modern theory, which dates back to
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
's hallmark paper "Remarks on Nominalization". Such remarks promoted the restrictive view of the syntax, as well as the need to separate syntactically-predictable constructions such as gerunds from less predictable formations and specifically-derived nominals.
In the current literature, researchers seem to take one of two stances when proposing a syntactic analysis of nominalization. The first is a
lexicalist argument structure
In logic, logical form of a statement is a precisely-specified semantic version of that statement in a formal system. Informally, the logical form attempts to formalize a possibly ambiguous statement into a statement with a precise, unambigu ...
approach in which researchers propose that syntactic argument structure (AS) is transferred to the
nominal
Nominal may refer to:
Linguistics and grammar
* Nominal (linguistics), one of the parts of speech
* Nominal, the adjectival form of "noun", as in "nominal agreement" (= "noun agreement")
* Nominal sentence, a sentence without a finite verb
* Nou ...
(noun word) from an embedded verb.
The second is a
structural approach
Structural approach is an approach in the study of language that emphasizes the examination of language in very detailed manner.This strategy, which is considered a traditional approach, examines language products such as sounds, morphemes, words, ...
in which researchers analyze the dominance structures of nodes to account for nominalization.
An example of a structural analysis is that there must be a VP node within a nominal that accounts for the syntactic argument structure.
Both models attempt to explain the ambiguous cases of nominal readings, such as that of “examination,” which can be read both eventively and non-eventively.
Emergence of X'-scheme – Chomsky (1965)
One of Chomsky's primary concerns at the time was to generate an explanation and understanding for
linguistic theory
Theoretical linguistics is a term in linguistics which, like the related term general linguistics, can be understood in different ways. Both can be taken as a reference to theory of language, or the branch of linguistics which inquires into the n ...
, or "explanatory adequacy." Further insight emerged from the development of the
Universal Grammar Theory. The goal of Universal Grammar (UG) is to specify possible languages and provide an evaluation procedure that selects the correct language given primary linguistic data. The further usage of
X' theory
In linguistics, X-bar theory is a model of phrase-structure grammar and a theory of syntactic category formation that was first proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1970Chomsky, Noam (1970). Remarks on Nominalization. In: R. Jacobs and P. Rosenbaum (eds.) ...
introduced a new approach in analyzing fixed principles that regulate the range of possible languages and a finite set of rules arranged to acquire a language.
Chomsky and nominalization
Chomsky's article "Remarks of Nominalization" has been considered a central point of reference in the analysis of nominalization and has been cited in numerous theories of nominalization.
In that article, he proposes the
Lexicalist hypothesis Lexicalist hypothesis is a hypothesis proposed by Noam Chomsky in which he claims that syntactic transformations only can operate on syntactic constituents. The hypothesis states that the system of grammar that assembles words is separate and differ ...
and explains that most analyses of nominalization across languages assign at least one role to the lexicon in their derivation
Derived and gerundive nominals
In his 1970 paper "Remarks on Nominalization," Chomsky introduces two types of nominals that are extremely important for nominalization in English: derived nominals and gerundive nominals.
Chomsky describes gerundive nominals as being formed from propositions of subject-predicate form, such as with the suffix “-ing” in English.
Gerundive nominals also do not have the internal structure of a noun phrase and so cannot be replaced by another noun.
Adjectives cannot be inserted into the gerundive nominal.
Chomsky argues that derived nominals in English are too irregular and unpredictable to be accounted for by syntactic rules.
He claims that it is impossible to predict whether a derived nominal exists and what affix it takes.
In contrast, gerundive nominals are regular and predictable enough to posit a syntactic analysis, as all gerundives are verbs with the affix ''-ing''.
Chomsky explains that derived nominals have the internal structure of a noun phrase and can be quite varied and distinctive.
For example, in English they can be formed with many different affixes such as ''-ation'', ''-ment'', ''-al'', and ''-ure''.
Chomsky also notes that there are many restrictions on the formation of derived nominals.
Argument structure analysis – Grimshaw (1994)
Internal and external arguments
Predicates, or verb phrases, take arguments (see
argument (linguistics)
In linguistics, an argument is an expression that helps complete the meaning of a predicate, the latter referring in this context to a main verb and its auxiliaries. In this regard, the ''complement'' is a closely related concept. Most predicates ...
). Broadly, arguments can be divided into two types: internal or external. Internal arguments are those that are contained within the maximal projection of the verb phrase, and there can be more than one of them. External arguments are those that are not contained within the maximal projection of the verb phrase and are typically the "subject" of the sentence.
Argument structure theory
Grimshaw's 1994 analysis of nominalization is based in argument structure theory, which analyzes the argument structures of predicates. She proposes that argument structures have inherent, internal organizations and so there are degrees of prominence of arguments, which distinguish this organization structure. The degrees of prominence are proposed to be determined by the characteristics of the predicates.
For the purpose of her analysis, the argument prominence is given as Agent, Experiencer, Goal/Location, and Theme.
This internal structure is posited as a result of extension of the intrinsic
semantic properties
Semantic properties or meaning properties are those aspects of a linguistic unit, such as a morpheme, word, or sentence, that contribute to the meaning of that unit. Basic semantic properties include being ''meaningful'' or ''meaningless'' – for ...
of the lexical items, and in actuality that
theta roles
In generative grammar, a theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic verb argument, argument structure—the number and type of noun phrases—required syntactically by a particular verb. For example, the verb ''put'' re ...
, the aforementioned argument types (agent, experiencer, goal/location, and theme), should be eliminated from any discussion of argument structure because they have no effect on the grammatical representation.
Rather, the prominence relationships of those arguments is sufficient for analyzing verbal external arguments. Evidence can be seen with both Japanese and English examples.
Japanese syntactic structures illustrate that there are requirements for the locality of these argument types and so their positions are not interchangeable, and a hierarchy seems to be established.
In English, verbal compounds create theta-marking domains such that for
ditransitive verb
In grammar, a ditransitive (or bitransitive) verb is a transitive verb whose contextual use corresponds to a subject (grammar), subject and two object (grammar), objects which refer to a Thematic relation, theme and a recipient. According to cert ...
s, which take two internal arguments, and one external argument, and so for grammatical representation to surfacesl, the internal arguments must be split, with the more prominent argument being inside the compound and the less prominent internal argument being outside the compound.
Grimshaw also proposes an aspectual theory of external arguments, which she extends to complex event nominals by proposing they have an internal aspect and inherit the verb base argument structure.
Nominalization-argument structure analysis
Grimshaw analyzes nominalization with a lexical argument structure approach. The relationship between nouns and verbs is described differently from prior research in the sense that it is proposed that some nominals take obligatory arguments but others do not, depending on the event-structure.
The biggest issue in proposing an account of argument structure for nominals comes from their ambiguous nature, unlike verbs.
Nouns that can take arguments, unlike verbs, also sometimes take arguments that can be construed as optional in some cases and not optional in others. Grimshaw proposes for that ambiguity to be ignored such that there are nouns that can take arguments, and there are nouns that cannot. That is because there are nouns that behave like verbs and require arguments, and there are nouns in arguments seem to be optional or do not take arguments at all.
Types of events
Three types of events are described which are denoted by nouns: complex events, simple events, and results.
Complex events are denoted by nouns that have an argument structure and so can take arguments. Smple events and result nominals are proposed as being without argument structure, and so they cannot take arguments.
In English, nominals formed by ''-ation'' are ambiguous, and the reading can either be eventive (Argument Structure) or non-eventive. Nominals formed by the addition of ''-er'' are also ambiguous, but the ambiguity is between an
agentive reading (Argument structure) and an
instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...
reading.
Grimshaw's proposal of argument structure nominals can be found outlined in Alexiadou (2010),
but a few characteristics will be stressed: argument structure nominals must be singular, be read eventively, and take arguments.
=Examples
=
![Instrumental Argument Tree](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Instrumental_Argument_Tree.png)
Grimshaw observes that nominal argument structures are deficient and need a
preposition phrase
An adpositional phrase, in linguistics, is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or circ ...
to take a syntactic argument.
As seen in the examples above, the ''-ation'' nominalization has a complex eventive reading in which the nominal takes an argument (the student driver). Grimshaw's argumentation is that is possible only because of the presence of the preposition, ''of'', which facilitates grammatical representation of argument structure and so the nominal can take its obligatory argument. The lack of preposition and argument in the simple event case is caused by the nominal having no argument structure and therefore not being a theta-marker a head that requires an argument, according to Grimshaw.
Grimshaw expands on that difference and hypothesizes that
complements of complex event nouns are obligatory and so
adjuncts
In brewing, adjuncts are unmalted grains (such as corn, rice, rye, oats, barley, and wheat) or grain products used in brewing beer which supplement the main mash ingredient (such as malted barley). This is often done with the intention of cut ...
may actually syntactically behave similarly to arguments.
Complex versus simple event nominals
Thebdistinction between complex and simple events is discussed by Lieber (2018) as being interpreted by Grimshaw to be a difference in the argument structure of the nominal type as a result of the
syntactic context
In semiotics, linguistics, sociology and anthropology, context refers to those objects or entities which surround a ''focal event'', in these disciplines typically a communicative event, of some kind. Context is "a frame that surrounds the event a ...
in which the nominalized word occurs.
The first instance of ''examination'' has a complex event interpretation because it is a derived nominal, which, according to Grimshaw, "inherits" the argument structure of the base verb, which must be satisfied by taking on the argument(s) that the verb would have.
Specifically, ''examination'' is a
deverbal noun
Deverbal nouns are nouns that are derived from verbs or verb phrases. The formation of deverbal nouns is a type of nominalization (noun formation). Examples of deverbal nouns in English include ''organization'' (derived from the verb ''organize''), ...
, which is a nominal derived from a verb.
The interpretation of the sentence "The examination of the student driver lasted one hour" is "The student driver was examined".
![Simple Event-nominalization](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Simple_Event-nominalization.png)
The second instance of ''examination'' has a simple event interpretation because while it is a derived nominal, according to Grimshaw, it does not "inherit" the verbal argument structure, and only the lexical/semantic content is projected.
The suffix, ''-ation'', is attached to a verb, "examine." The interpretation of the sentence "The examination lasted one hour" is "The exam took one hour."
Lieber (2018) refers to nominals that may take both simple and complex event interpretations as "
polysemic
Polysemy ( or ; ) is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from ''monosemy'', where a word has a single ...
."
Syntactic representation – Grimshaw (1994)
=Subcategorization frames
=
The nominal examination in the contexts of an eventive or non-eventive reading has a different subcategorization frame.
Examination subcategorization frames
* Argument structure reading: examination,
_(''of'' DP)* Non-argument structure reading: examination,
_VP
A vice president, also director in British English, is an Corporate officer, officer in government or business who is below the President (corporate title), president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presid ...
The nominal writer, in terms of its agentive or instrumental reading also has different subcategorization frames.
Writer subcategorization frames
* Argument structure reading: writer,
_(''of'' DP)* Non-argument structure reading: writer,
_VP
A vice president, also director in British English, is an Corporate officer, officer in government or business who is below the President (corporate title), president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presid ...
Structural model analysis – Alexiadou (2001)
Analysis overview
Alexiadou (2001) supports the idea that the difference between nouns and verbs is located within the functional layers of its syntactic structure.
She explains that initially, only verbs were thought to take arguments, but it was later proven that some nouns (process nouns) are systematically like verbs in their argument taking capacities and that others (result nouns) do not take arguments at all.
Alexiadou (2001) claims that the key difference between nominals has been derived from variation in their functional structures.
Process and result nouns
![Process Nominalization Tree](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Process_Nominalization_Tree.png)
Building on Grimshaw's (1990) analysis of argument structure and events, Alexiadou (2001) studies "complex events," which she refers to as "process nouns" or "event nouns," to denote an event, and "simple events," which she refers to as "result nouns," to indicate an output of an event.
Deverbal noun
Deverbal nouns are nouns that are derived from verbs or verb phrases. The formation of deverbal nouns is a type of nominalization (noun formation). Examples of deverbal nouns in English include ''organization'' (derived from the verb ''organize''), ...
Alexiadou (2001) adopts a structural approach to accounting for eventative versus non-eventative interpretations of deverbal nominalization.
Her analysis posits that both interpretations (process nouns and result nouns) are associated with a distinct syntactic structure.
Alexiadou (2001) proposes that the functional structure of process nominals is much like that of verbs by including verb-like projections such as Aspect Phrase (AspP) and a light Voice Phrase (vP), but result nominals differ from verbs and have no Aspect Phrase or light Voice Phrase included in its functional structure therefore resembling the structure of an underived noun.
More on deverbal nominalization
Alexiadou (2001) further develops an explanation for the ambiguous nature of deverbal nominals. There are a number of ways through which that is shown, a notable technique being known as the Distributed Morphology framework.
Ambiguity can be seen at both the semantic and syntactic level in deverbal nominals. At the semantic level, they may refer to either the events or number of entities, and from a syntactic point of view, its ambiguity stems from its ability to reveal the syntactic argument.
See also
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Nominal (word)
In linguistics, the term ''nominal'' refers to a category used to group together nouns and adjectives based on shared properties. The motivation for nominal grouping is that in many languages nouns and adjectives share a number of morphological ...
*
Pronominal
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...
*
Initial-stress-derived noun
Initial-stress derivation is a phonological process in English that moves stress to the first syllable of verbs when they are used as nouns or adjectives. (This is an example of a suprafix.) This process can be found in the case of several dozen ve ...
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Verbal noun
A verbal noun or gerundial noun is a verb form that functions as a noun. An example of a verbal noun in English grammar, English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The sacking of the city was an epochal event" (''sacking'' is a noun formed from the ...
Notes
References
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Linguistic morphology