Abstract
Abstract 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.
Highlights
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
A paper that presents and compares data from languages as different as Latin and a number of Australian languages might surprise at a first glance
Considering that the type of Latin supine ending in -(t)um meets us at the beginning of the literary tradition in clearly defined form and complete grammatical potency, used for the statement of a spatial goal and to express the notion of finality and with verbal government of a dependent object, it would appear that the modulation of the nominal -tu-stems as an original derivational category into the function of inflectional morphology is something that has already occurred at some time in the past
Summary
A paper that presents and compares data from languages as different as Latin and a number of Australian languages might surprise at a first glance. The expression of what a person does and in which situation an individual is, is necessary for all types of communication and there is a need or at least a tendency to “compress” and “condensate” sentences, clauses and phrases into the word class of nouns, since such nominalizations permit quotation and create anaphoric relations as practical instruments linking utterances to each other. They are valuable suprasyntactic tools to constitute texts. The authors of this paper have been working together for a lot of years as researchers and academic teachers
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