Transcategorial Operations

Abstract

Abstract The chapter discusses transcategorial operations such as nominalization and verbalization. Based on the author’s previous work, the chapter presents a model for constraining typology of transcategorial operations in general and nominalization in particular. The crucial ingredients of the proposed Generalized Scale Model (GSM) are: (i) functionally based hierarchies of verbal and nominal categories, which determine susceptibility of individual categories for loss/retention in transcategorial operations; (ii) structural features, pertaining to the way categories are expressed morphologically, which may interfere with the hierarchy constraints; (iii) Generalized Scale formation as a result of integrating the hierarchies of verbal and nominal categories; (iv) Blocking Effects pertaining to incompatibility of verbal and nominal categories providing alternative means of encoding certain functions (e.g. sentential vs possessive encoding of arguments), which impose additional constraints on the GSM. The chapter demonstrates that the proposed model can capture all cross-linguistically recurrent nominalization patterns, as well as account for apparent counterexamples.