Abstract
In this article we explore the range of aspectual and quantificational readings that are available to two kinds of deverbal nominalizations in English, conversion nouns and -ingnominals. Using data gathered from theCorpus of Contemporary American English(COCA) and theBritish National Corpus(BNC), we examine the range of readings available for the conversion and -ingforms of 106 English verbs in context. We distinguish eventive versus referential readings, looking at instances of both count and mass quantification for the two kinds of nominalizations. Within the eventive readings we also distinguish bounded versus unbounded aspectual readings, and within bounded readings two types that we call ‘completive’ and ‘package’. We argue that the quantificational properties and aspectual intepretation of both conversion and -ingnominalizations are not rigidly or even loosely determined by the form of the nominalization, but that the lexical aspect of the base verb (state, activity, accomplishment, achievement, semelfactive) plays some role in circumscribing aspectual readings. We argue that the strongest role in determining quantificational and aspectual readings is played by factors arising from the context in which conversion forms and -ingnominalizations are deployed. The aspectual interpretation of conversion and -ingnominalizations can be influenced by the presence of temporal and quantificational modifiers, by surrounding tenses, as well as by encyclopedic knowledge. We conclude with a consideration of the theoretical implications of our findings.
Highlights
In this article we explore the range of aspectual and quantificational readings that are available to two kinds of deverbal nominalizations in English, conversion nouns and -ing nominals
Are all three aspectual interpretations always available with both conversion and -ing forms? Do we find unbounded, bounded-completive and bounded-package readings as freely for all verbs as we do for the verb kill? Is there any relationship between the lexical aspect of the base verb and the potential aspectual readings of the conversion and -ing forms? We turn to these questions
We summarize our findings in table 2, where we show the total number of verbs we examined for each aktionsart and how many of those verbs exhibited the unbounded, bounded-completive or bounded-package reading in either their conversion nominalization or their -ing nominalization
Summary
In this article we explore the range of aspectual and quantificational readings that are available to two kinds of deverbal nominalizations in English, conversion nouns and -ing nominals. There has not been a thorough and comprehensive study of quantificational and aspectual readings of nominalizations in English, so it is worth assessing the descriptive and theoretical claims that have been made in passing and beginning to develop a coherent picture both of the facts and of their theoretical implications. This is what we set out to do here. The aspectual interpretation of conversion and -ing nominalizations can be influenced by the presence of temporal and quantificational modifiers, by surrounding tenses, as well as by encyclopedic knowledge
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