A cline between nouns and verbs: Nominalizations in Shiwiar (Chicham)

Abstract

Abstract 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.