Categorization and nominalization in zero nominals

Abstract

In ‘Categorization and nominalization in zero-derived nouns’ Iordăchioaia discusses a type of nominalization generally neglected in the generative literature after Chomsky (1970), namely zero-derived nouns (ZNs). While overtly suffixed nominals are taken to systematically nominalize verbal constructions with argument structure, ZNs are considered to represent quite lexicalized uses corresponding to Grimshaw’s (1990) result or simple event nominals. In current syntactic models of word formation like DM or XSM, the implication is that ZNs are simple categorizations of roots as nouns in specific syntactic contexts and cannot instantiate real nominalizations of verbal structure. One important argument that Borer (2013) brings in support of this hypothesis is the alleged inability of ZNs to realize verbal argument structure. Iordăchioaia shows that, depending on the ontological type of the root that the base verb is built on, ZNs may in fact realize argument structure and receive compositional deverbal readings of the kind that nominalizations with overt suffixes resent. Building on Beavers and Koontz-Garboden’s (2020) distinction between property concept and result roots, she argues that ZNs corresponding to verbs built on the two types of root exhibit a contrast in their potential to realize argument structure. She then compares ZNs derived from change of state verbs (which are built on result roots) with ZNs derived from psych verbs (which are built on property concept roots) and shows by means of corpus data that the former often instantiate inchoative or causative change of state readings with which they realize argument structure. By contrast, the apparent semantic arguments of psych ZNs are not structural, as they involve idiosyncratic prepositional realizations, similarly to underived psych nouns. <269>