Remarks on propositional nominalization

Abstract

Moulton’s ‘Remarks on propositional nominalization’ investigates nominalization at the highest reaches of the extended verbal projection, finite CPs. While CPs can express propositions, Moulton puts forward the novel claim that only nominalization of CPs by a semantically-contentful N can deliver reference to propositional objects. This conclusion is in contrast to the propositional nominalization operations proposed in Chierchia (1984), Potts (2002), and Takahashi (2010). Evidence comes from a correlation between two types of D+CP constructions in Spanish (Picallo, 2002; Serrano, 2014, 2015) and the kind of propositions they can describe. Moulton then shows that a similar pattern arises in the case of exophoric propositional proforms, a novel observation. Putting the two case studies together, the following picture emerges: Natural language does not permit reference to proposition-like objects directly by adding a D to a CP, but only via some content-bearing entity (e.g. Moltmann’s (2013) attitudinal objects). In the case of propositional nominalizations, this entity must come in the form a lexical N; in the case of propositional discourse anaphora, this must come in the form of a discourse referent that bears propositional content, such as an assertion event (Hacquard, 2006). <189>