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On Agent Nominalizations and Why They are Not Like Event Nominalizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Mark C. Baker  and
Nadya Vinokurova
Mark C. Baker*
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
Nadya Vinokurova*
Affiliation:
Research Institute of Humanities- Yakutsk
*
Department of Linguistics, Rutgers University, 18 Seminary Place, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 [mabaker@ruccs.rutgers.edu]
[nadyavinokurova@yahoo.com]
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Abstract

We consider agent-denoting nominalizations like the finder of the wallet, contrasting them with the better-studied action/event-denoting nominalizations. We show that in English, Sakha, and Mapudungun, agent-denoting nominalizations can have none of the verbal/clausal features that event-denoting nominalizations often have: they cannot contain adverbs, voice markers, aspect, or negation. The one apparent exception to this generalization is that (only) Sakha allows accusative-case objects in agentive nominalizations, but we show that this is due to Sakha's special rule of accusative case assignment, not to a difference in the structure. We explain these restrictions by saying that agentive nominalizers have a semantics like that of a Voice head (Kratzer 1996). Given this, the natural order of semantic composition implies that agentive nominalizers, like Voice, must combine directly with a bare VP. We conclude by presenting the results of a seventy-eight-language survey, confirming that human languages in general avoid clause-like syntax inside agentive nominalizations, although it is permitted in reduced relative clauses, which may look superficially similar.

Keywords

nominalizationagent nominalsevent nominalsparticiplesgerundivesmorphological typology

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 85 , Issue 3 , September 2009 , pp. 517 - 556
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by Linguistic Society of America

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