Nominalization in Northwest Amazonia: Introduction

Abstract

The chapters in this volume describe the forms and functions of deverbal nominalizations in a selection of indigenous languages of the northwest Amazon basin, with an eye the wider typological implications. We define nominalization as a process by which a non-nominal unit is converted into a nominal one through some derivational process. More pecifically, deverbal nominalization is the ability of a language to reify a verbal predicate and present it as a nominal argument or modifier (Deutscher 2009: 199); in other words, allow a verbal predicate form (part of) a referring expression, that is, a noun phrase. This is a wide definition, subsuming such traditional terms as action-nominal, masdar, participle, infinitive, gerund. Aikhenvald (2011: 316) points out that deverbal nominalizations often have somewhat different properties than those derived from other classes of words. A few published volumes that draw our attention the importance of nominalization in the Americas include works on functions of nominalizations as subordination strategies (van Gijn et al. 2010, van Gijn 2014) and in the context of relative clauses (Comrie and Estrada-Fernandez 2012). The evidence suggests that nominalization has been a major force in both synchronic and diachronic phenomena, but has not seen the concentrated research that has been apparent in (especially Southeast) Asian languages (e.g. Yap et al. 2011). For Amazonian languages, it is clear from the relatively small amount published so far that the phenomena encountered are also central the grammars of various languages, a fact noted by Derbyshire and Pullum (1986) and Dixon and Aikhenvald (1999: 9). Notably, there are many typological parallels with better described languages that demand further investigation.