The Projection of Argument-Taking Nomials

Abstract

Drawing on data from Modern Hebrew, I argue that derivedargument-taking nominals do not form an aspectuallyhomogeneous class and that the nominal system manifests a perfective/imperfective opposition. Each aspectual type is characterized by a cluster of differentsyntactic properties. Concretely, it is shown that imperfective nominals,in contrast to perfective nominals, are non-definite, fail to host subjects,and disallow DP internal agreement. The defective nature of imperfectivenominals is hypothesized to derive from the absence of the functionalhead D in their projection. The difference in the aspectual interpretation ofthe two types of argument-taking nominals is also attributed to the presenceor absence of D. The proposed account of aspect in the nominal systemprovides a principled explanation for the mass properties ofargument-taking nominals, linking the latter to the aspectualnon-delimitedness of these nominals.