Heidi Harley
In: Quantification, Definiteness and Nominalization, edited by Monika Rathert and Anastasia Giannadikou. Oxford: OUP, pp. 320-342.
Publication year: 2009

The challenge the result interpretation of complex event nominalizations poses to a Distributed Morphology analysis was first laid out in detail in Borer 2003, Ackema and Neeleman 2004, and Alexiadou (this volume) and is taken up here. This paper explores first what the internal structure of event nominalizations must consist of, by considering the syntax of verb-particle constructions and their behavior in mixed nominalizations (following the line of analysis laid out in Harley and Noyer 1998). Then an analysis of particular verbalizing morphemes (-ify, -ize, -en, and -ate) is proposed, identifying them as underspecified spell-outs of an eventive v° head. These two analyses jointly lead to particular conclusions about the internal structure of the VP, namely that it must include at least three projections: Voice, v, and √. Finally some speculation is presented about the problem of how to derive a result nominalization meaning from the event nominalization meaning, given the necessary conclusion, for DM, that even on the result interpreation, these nominals have verbal syntactic structure contained within them.