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The Turkish nominalizer -(y)Iş demonstrates a broad spectrum of functions ranging from a deverbal word-formation device that forms lexicalized nouns with concrete and abstract meanings to an inflectional marker used in nominal clauses, especially in clausal complementation. In some uses, the item conveys manner semantics. While the item itself has been variously investigated and forms an established part of any Turkish grammar description, there is still a lack of consensus on its functional and semantic properties. This article investigates the morphosyntactic functions and the semantic features of the nominalizer -(y)Iş in light of the claims in the linguistic literature on the one hand, which include manner, countable events, factive imperfective, single instance of an event, direct reference to the inner process of an action, etc., and of examples from primary sources on the other, and evaluates the findings from the perspective of grammaticalization. It will be argued that the range of functions of this item and the fact that it seems to resist any straightforward analysis result from its transition from a derivational marker to an inflectional marker with tasks including complementizer functions, a process in which manner semantics will be argued to play a role.

The article deals with how English deverbal nouns with the suffix -ing have been imported into Italian. The focus is on the semantic characteristics of these borrowed nouns in Italian and, in particular, on the question of whether they have been borrowed not as simple sign-concept pairings but with argument and event structure. In previous research, it has been claimed that argument and event structure need to be licensed by some overt functional element. Hence, borrowed deverbal nouns should have argument structure and event structure only if they have an overt affix, in other words, only if the forms are not borrowed holistically as unsegmented words but retain internal morphological structure, implying that morphological borrowing of the affix has occurred. When a foreign affix combines with native bases of the recipient language, this is often considered an important criterion for morphological borrowing, which is clearly not the case for the suffix -ing in Italian. Here, it will be shown that contrary to expectation, numerous occurrences with argument and event structure may be found in a large Italian web corpus for a sample of English deverbal nouns ending in -ing, borrowed into (certain registers) of Italian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morphological productivity represents an essential property for human language and, as such, it lies at the core of any thorough word-formation theory. Studies in productivity have traditionally focused on areas of high profitability, that is, on the quantification and ranking of processes which show the capacity for lexical creation (e. g. ‑able, ‑ness, ‑ity). In other cases, however, morphological processes can no longer be used productively, or they can be used minimally (e. g. ‑th, ‑hood). These processes have received considerably less attention in the literature, partly due to their complex theoretical definition, partly due to their difficult practical assessment. In view of the shortage of specific research, this paper revolves around the current status of the nominalizing suffix ‑ment, which enjoyed a high profitability index between the 12th and 17th centuries, and is today taken to embody marginal productivity in synchronic terms. The suffix is explored in the light of lexicographic and corpus data for an inspection of its role in nominalizations with the meaning action/process, specifically concerning recent coinages that suggest some degree of morphological activity. This up-to-date picture of ‑ment shows that it is risky to present it as unproductive, and it leads to the consideration of related notions like the availability-unavailability divide or the measurement of low productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines previous hypotheses claiming the primacy of a perfect(ive) value in certain qusheng (*-s) derivations (in particular nominalization) in Old Chinese. First, it revisits examples previously cited as having been derived from the perfect(ive), and proposes to re-classify them as resulting from three different derivational processes, nominalization, verb argument demotion, and adverbialization. Second, it focuses on Sino-Tibetan comparative data, in particular from Situ Rgyalrong, a language with severe isomorphism across four -s suffixes. Then, on the basis of morphological (especially stem changes) and syntactic criteria, it sorts out the relationship between the different -s suffixes in Situ, while suggesting multiple sources to account for the diverse functions of qusheng (*-s) in Old Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution addresses the general theme of Multifunctionality and syncretism in non-finite forms. When we see a particular form in a number of different environments yielding different effects, what does it mean to say that this reflects multifunctionality rather than syncretism? As a refinement of multifunctionality the notion of 'multi-effectuality' is introduced: one element participates in different derivations, performing one and the same operation, but yields different interpretive effects depending on the environment. The analysis takes as a starting point the role of the affix -en in Dutch. The canonical view is that when attached to a verb stem, -en functions either as an infinitival marker or as a nominalizing affix. It is shown that this view cannot be maintained. The "functions" of -en are unified by analyzing it as projecting an 'eventuality expression', with different effects depending on the syntactic environment. The analysis is extended to English, focusing on the contrasts between Dutch and English infinitives and on the role of the English -ing affix in gerunds and participles. The discussion proceeds with an analysis of Frisian with its two forms of the infinitive and concludes with some reflections on the relation between syntactic and semantic categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper presents a descriptive and analytical account of the various functions of the morpheme ko in Miluo, a Xiang variety of Chinese. This morpheme is used as a classifier, genitive, possessive, pronominal, relative clause marker, nominalizer and as a sentence-final stance-marking marker. We also illustrate the use of ko as a demonstrative pronoun and prenominal topic marker. We discuss these functions in the light of the diachronic development of nominalizers and topic markers. Our findings provide support for proposals concerning the pathways of grammaticalization that have either been conjectured or attested in various languages, specifically the relation between adnominal markers and nominalization and the relation between demonstratives and topic markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of a study investigating a possible influence of the viewpoint (perfective vs. imperfective) and lexical (telic vs. atelic) aspect of Polish verbs on the countability of eventive nominalizations (substantiva verbalia) derived from these verbs. Polish substantiva verbalia preserve many properties of the base verbs, including the eventive meaning and aspectual morphology. Native speakers of Polish rated the acceptability of nominalizations in count and mass contexts. An effect of both viewpoint and lexical aspect was found in mass contexts, where aspectually delimited (perfective, accomplishment) nominalizations were less acceptable than non-delimited (imperfective, state) nominalizations. In count contexts, only an effect of the lexical aspect was clearly present, with accomplishment nominalizations being more acceptable than state nominalizations. The nominalizations were overall rated as more natural in mass than count constructions, regardless of the aspect. The results indicate that aspect plays a role in establishing the countability of a word, but it does not fully determine it.

When a clause like glass cracks more quickly is rankshifted and nominalized as glass crack growth rate, ideational grammatical metaphor (IGM) occurs. However, embedded clauses (e.g. the fact that it had been shown to be aforgery ruined his argument) are also rankshifted and nominalized, but they cannot be regarded as IGMs. This issue of embedding has tended to be relatively under studies within the theory of systemic functional linguistics (SFL). In order to tackle this issue, we propose a principle (i.e. the full realization principle, FRP) which operates in parallel with the principle of rankshift for the identification of IGMs. Under the FRP principle, a nominalization may be full, intermediate or raw in realization, but only the full nominalization which is compressed both in meaning and form can be regarded as IGM. As a necessary supplement to the rankshift principle, FRP helps distinguish nominalizations which are IGMs from those which are not, and the issue of embedding will not be a problem any longer. This in turn offers a new perspective to the categorization of nominalization in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study gives a comprehensive portrait of the accusatival-passival type of the composite-predicate (or support-verb) construction in the history of Latin. Taking stock of properties shows them to only minimally serve as a touchstone distinguishing between Latin composite predicates and syntagmatically identical verb + direct object constructs. The intricate issue of idiomaticity and the prospects of establishing its parameters are discussed, concluding that although characteristics such as figurativity of the verb or direct-object incorporation indicate this status, the closed corpus of Latin securely allows only for a quantitative parameter, or familiarity, for this kind of a complex predicate. We are looking from the diachronic perspective at individual support verbs, primarily capere and habere, in the evolvement of their function and status—grammatical or lexical-phraseological—as well as at other sets of verbs, figurative ones and verbs otherwise departing from their basic meaning. The support verb emerges as the cardinal constituent of the construct, determining the function of the complex, and as considerably autonomous, being capable of representing, in anaphoric contexts, the entire construction. A reconsideration of the opposition between composite predicates and their monolexematic counterparts brings up again their added value as to exhaustiveness, clarity, perspective, and focus of the message conveyed through a composite predicate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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It is noticeable that the academic papers written by Chinese English learners are lacking in academic features largely due to their poor ability to use nominalization. Therefore, the instruction of nominalization in an academic English writing course is badly needed. The author conducted one-semester-long instruction of nominalization to 90 non-English majors under the guidance of the production-oriented approach (POA). This research demonstrated how to apply POA, specifically, the enabling procedure to the teaching of nominalization. By triangulating the data of students' interviews, learning journals and written output, and the data of 4 teachers' class observations and interviews, this study found that the accurate application of the three criteria of effective enabling contributed to the improvement of the quantity and quality of nominalization in academic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals both with action nouns as a semantic class of word formation and with nominalization as a derivational process via offering a lot of relevant data in a kind of typological confrontation. Oswald Panagl investigates Latin examples applying criteria such as productivity, regularity, semantic transparency and syntactic behavior. As a result, he denotes derivations in -tiōn as the most vivid and active type of action noun delivering almost countless tokens. As a special case he treats the nominalizations in -tu becoming productive when they establish the grammatical category of supine in -tum. This procedure of a switch from derivation to inflection represents a sort of grammaticalization. He offers a scale model of increasing concretization (action–result–instrument–location–agents) exemplified with items from a variety of languages. Fritz Schweiger's research presents a series of data from the Australian languages (Alyawarra, Bunuba, Diyari, Djapu, Gumbaynggir, Guugu Yimidhirr, Kalkatungu, Uradhi, Wambaya, and Wardaman). The author defines and analyzes the morpholo gical principles of word formation in his linguistic material and classifies the data arte legis. Because of the specific situation and the complex interrelations within this linguistic group of tongues investigated in this paper, it seems nearly impossible to develop and apply criteria of the common sort for uncovering genealogical kinship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ut-Ma'in (Kainji, Benue-Congo), spoken in northwestern Nigeria, has two morphosyntactically distinct progressive constructions -- the Intransitive Progressive Construction and the Transitive Progressive Construction. This paper presents the synchronic structure of each construction, proposed historical sources of the distinct morphological pieces, and a comparison of the Ut-Ma'in Progressive Constructions with cognate elements from four Kainji language clusters. No single source component has grammaticalized to mark progressive aspect in Ut-Ma'in. Rather, the combination of several elements created the progressive. Formal changes in several morphosyntactic elements within each of the constructions provide evidence that originally nominalized verb forms are gradually becoming less noun-like and more verb-like. These developments are examples of constructionalization, as the Progressive Constructions exist as new form-meaning pairs distinct from the source. These formal changes also show signs of adjustment, whereby a construction moves toward isomorphism, that is, a one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning. Specifically, various stages of morphological loss are evident in particular lexemes when used in Ut-Ma'in Progressive Constructions, gradually spreading throughout the lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides empirical evidence showing that the clause-taking nominals el hecho de (Spanish) and o facto de (Portuguese) are not reliable tests of factivity of predicates, as commonly assumed in the literature. Naturally occurring data from both languages show that these nominals are compatible with a wide range of predicates and that they occur in sentences with both factive and non-factive interpretations. Our findings contribute to the debate on the syntactic and semantic properties of clause-taking nominal constructions, clausal nominalization in Ibero-Romance, and to current research on the nature of factivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the semantics of Present-day English gerunds by analyzing their collocational preferences. While traditional approaches suggest that a semantic opposition between 'actions' and 'facts' determines the meaning as well as the distributional preferences of nominal (the signing of the contract) and verbal (signing the contract) gerunds, these claims have not been supported by quantitative evidence. At the same time, more recent studies which quantitatively and qualitatively analyze the meaning of gerunds from a referential perspective lack a distributional dimension. This study presents a semantic typology of the nouns and verbs that are attracted to nominal and verbal gerunds in noun and verb complementation structures by means of a distinctive collexeme analysis which has been applied to contextual collexemes. The analysis shows that, while nominal and verbal gerunds occur in clearly distinctive contexts, this distinction does not appear to be based on an action-fact dichotomy, but is rather determined by the more abstract features of conceptual (in)dependence and temporal flexibility. Finally, it is shown how these abstract semantic profiles can be filled in more concretely by specific contextual slots, thus arriving at a more fine-grained and dynamic perspective on the semantics of English gerunds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Cuzco Quechua (CQ), a periphrastic construction optionally marked for the past tense is said to serve as past habitual. The study focuses on the evolution of this construction in CQ. Its development replicates the cline suggested by Bybee et al. in 1994 and supports their findings but not in full: Although the habitual marker in CQ is restricted temporally to the past, it bears no past tense marking. The article sketches the different stages and concludes that the construction in question had further grammaticalized to a past imperfective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies into the semantics of English gerunds have successfully uncovered meaning differences between nominal and verbal gerunds by adopting a referential perspective on their semantics. Referential research of gerundive nominalizations, however, still struggles with a number of issues, mainly centering around the position of verbal gerunds within the traditionally nominal domain of referentiality. This paper wishes to address these issues by establishing a multilayered model of referentiality which can be applied to both ordinary as well as less prototypical noun phrases. First of all, it disentangles the typically nominal feature of definiteness from the more flexible concept of specificity. Secondly, the model looks at the type of mental space in which the referent is accessed. Specific expressions are often associated with “actual” or realis spaces, whereas non-specific entities are typically linked to “virtual” or irrealis spaces. It is argued here, however, that deverbal nominalizations like gerunds realize specificity independently of the mental space the entity is located in. The multilayered model that is proposed is applied and integrated in a corpus-based analysis of Present-day English nominal and verbal gerunds. Mapping out the interactions between (in)definiteness, (non-)specificity and actuality/virtuality, it will be concluded, allows us to situate the various subtypes of nominal and verbal gerunds more accurately on the cline of functional nouniness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses forms, types, and functions of nominalizations in Murui, a Witotoan language spoken in Colombia and Peru. It is concerned with those nominalizations that involve classifiers and those that do not (agentive S/A nominalizations and event nominalizations). Murui nominalizations share a number of noun-like and verb-like properties. While agentive S/A nominalizations and those involving classifiers are more noun-like in nature, event nominalizations are more verb-like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deverbal nominalizations are often said to occupy an intermediate position between nouns and verbs. Here I describe the morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties of three deverbal nominalization strategies in Shiwiar, a Chicham language of Ecuador and Peru. Although nouns and verbs in Shiwiar are clearly distinguished in the grammar, deverbal nominalizations display a combination of both nominal and verbal traits. Furthermore, the three nominalizations types discussed here each have different proportions of noun-like and verb-like characteristics, thereby forming a gradient cline between the two major word classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I present the types of nominalization in Kakua, a language spoken by a group of hunter-gatherer peoples from the small Kakua-Nukakan family, inhabitants of the Vaupés area in eastern Colombia. I argue that the nominalization strategies in Kakua have developed from a traceable typical Kakua-Nukakan strategy, into a more Vaupés-like profile of expressing nominalizations, where Kakua had added more nominalization strategies in order for the language to adapt to the types of nominalizations found in many of Kakua's neighboring languages in the Vaupés area. For this, I will first give a description of the nominalization strategies in Kakua, to later compare them to the nominalization strategies in Nukak, Kakua's sister language spoken outside of the Vaupés area. The paper concludes with a comparison of nominalization in Kakua and the nominalization strategies found in the surrounding languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine aspect, eventuality type and transitivity alternations in two types of nominalization in Ossetian, an Iranian language spoken in East Caucasus, focusing on how deverbal nominals differ from fully inflected clauses projected by the same VPs. The main empirical finding of the study is: nominalizations exhibit a wider range of syntactic and semantic possibilities than fully inflected clauses. The finite verb in Ossetian is either perfective or imperfective and shows Slavic-type aspectual composition, but (prefixless) nominalizations are aspectless and are associated with English-type aspectual composition. Besides, deverbal nominals allow for transitivity alternations even if a corresponding finite verb does not. Our account for the observed pattern is based on the hypothesis that in the course of derivation, the range of options available at the VP level is narrowed down by the elements of functional structure, specifically, Asp and T. We argue that the role of Asp is to impose a quantization requirement on its complement predicate, while T interacts with the structure generated at the VP level in determining transitivity of a clause. Nominals can be built before Asp and T are merged, hence the semantic contribution of those heads is not part of their meaning. It that way, nominals provide us with a more direct access to the true characteristics of the verb and its immediate projections at early stages of derivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of narrative in various European languages analyzed the discourse structure as an elaborate system of oppositions based on complex paradigms of TAM categories. However, for obvious reasons this approach is not applicable for languages like Burmese, whose paradigmatic sets of TAM categories are very limited. Hence, although manifold discourse structuring devices are identified and described for this kind of languages, rarely do they form a coherently structured system. This study aims at representing discourse structuring strategies of narration in written colloquial Burmese as consisting of three principal categories, mobilized to reveal different aspects of the otherwise concealed presence of speech act participants. This results in a deviation of the narration from its typical form of untouched retelling of objectively represented events along three parameters: (a) remoteness vs. 'here-and-now' relevance, (b) objective vs. subjective representation and (c) monologue vs. dialogic settings of communication. The fine structure of narrative in Burmese is shown to be an outcome of the interaction of these functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ancient Indo-European languages, such as early Vedic or (Homeric) Greek, are usually considered to be characterized by a high degree of lability. According to the communis opinio, they had a considerable number of labile verbs or verbal forms that could be labile, cf. rudrā॔ r̥tásya sádaneṣu vāvr̥dhuḥ 'Rudras have grown [intransitive] in the residences of the truth' ~ índram ukthā॔ni vāvr̥dhuḥ 'The hymns have increased [transitive] Indra'. This paper offers a general overview of the Vedic verbal forms for which labile patterning is attested. I will argue that, for most of these forms, the secondary character of lability can be demonstrated. Thus, for many labile forms with middle inflection (in particular, forms belonging to the present system), labile patterning results from the polyfunctionality of the middle diathesis (self-beneficent / anticausative). The secondary transitive usages of some fundamentally intransitive verbs such as puṣyati 'prospers; makes prosper' originates from the syntactic re-analysis of content accusative constructions of the type 'X prospers (in) Y'→'X makes Y prosper'. I will further demonstrate that, within the Old Indo-Aryan period, we observe the decline of the labile type. Already in the second most ancient Vedic text, the Atharvaveda, we find very few labile forms. Thus, most of the active perfects which show labile syntax in the Rgveda are either attested in intransitive usages only, or in transitive usages only, or do not occur at all. I will also discuss the main mechanisms of the loss of labile pattern in Old Indo-Aryan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on non-anaphoric nominalized adjectives denoting abstract concepts, such as le vrai ‘the truth’, du sublime ‘the sublime’, and suggests that the standard analysis in terms of morphological conversion does not stand up to scrutiny. Abstract nominalized adjectives, for instance, cannot be considered “non-syntactic”, cannot be integrated without problems into existing patterns of derivation, and exhibit strong restrictions in terms of modification and determination. To solve the categorial mismatch of nominalized adjectives an alternative analysis from the perspective of Construction Grammar is proposed. More specifically, it is argued that, in accordance with the override principle (Michaelis 2003), the adjective conforms to the features of the construction with which it is combined. The fact that the construction in question inherits many of its specifications from the Determination construction, which is typically nominal, accounts for the hybrid nature of phrases headed by nominalized adjectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts out from the observation that the semantic labels of ‘fact’ and ‘action’ (Lees 1968[1960]) that are traditionally used in the description of English gerundive nominalizations (e.g. I worry that my posing the question defines me as a depressive) cannot distinguish gerundives from so-called action - ing nouns (e.g. Saddam's targeting of Israel) and also fail to capture the more subtle semantic distinctions within the system of gerundive nominalization. The descriptive analysis that is presented tries to move beyond the action/fact dichotomy, is firmly grounded in the nominal-constructional properties of the system and covers all subtypes of gerundive nominalization. Building on Schachter (1976), it argues that gerundive - ing nominalizations have shifted from the representational semantics of action - ing nouns to a more schematic, constructional semantics: gerundives, it is suggested, nominalize either a type or kind of process, with no subject implied, or they nominalize an instance of a process, characterized by the (clausal-)constructional link which it implies between the process type and a subject (Davidse 1997, Heyvaert 2003). The system of gerundive nominalization exploits all nominal-constructional options which it has within the structure of the NP to encode the absence or presence of this subject. Gerundives thus opt for non-specific, generic reference to encode the name of a type or class of process (with no subject implied) or to encode an instance with generic reference. They use specific (definite or indefinite) reference to designate a specific, non-generic instance. The subject is either included in the nominalized clausal unit (and in the oblique case), or it is encoded through nominal means: in the form of bare definite reference of the gerundive NP (signalling control by the matrix clause or anaphoric/exophoric reference with the co(n)text), or in the form of a possessive/genitive determiner. The analysis that is proposed sheds new light on previously undifferentiated categories of gerundive nominalization (such as the control type of bare gerundives), as well as points to interesting resemblances between gerundive nominalization and diachronic changes in other systems of deverbal nominalization. Crucially, it also allows for a better understanding of the semantics of the system and its differences with action - ing nominals, whose nominal-constructional options do not revolve around encoding the presence or absence of a subject but instead allow for a wide range of modifying elements and determiners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]