Abstract
The similarities and differences between verbs and their corresponding derived nouns have been a central issue of inquiry in the last decade. Distinguishing between event nominals (also known in the literature as process or action nominals) and result nominals (sometimes concrete or simple nouns), linguists have investigated the behavior of nouns with respect to argument structure and θ-theory (Anderson 1983–84, Lebeaux 1986, Grimshaw 1990, among others).
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The external argument of event nouns does not obligatorily surface. According to Grimshaw (1990), the external argument of nouns, like the external argument of passives, is suppressed and constitutes an A-adjunct, which is licensed by the argument structure, but is not 0-marked. According to others, its optionality follows from independent factors, such as the absence of a tense operator in nominals (see Clark 1990), or the fact that nouns need not have a predication subject in the sense of Rothstein (1983) (see Giorgi and Longobardi 1991). Szabolcsi (1992, 1994) argues that in Hungarian event nominals, the unexpressed subject is PRO, possibly present only in the lexicon. In Siloni (1990b, 1994a), evidence is presented in favor of the claim that the unexpressed subject of Hebrew event nouns is syntactically realized as a null element. See section 3.5 for detailed discussion of subjectless event nominals.
Using the term “event nominal”, I refer only to deverbal nouns (Grimshaw’s 1990 complex event nominals). In concert with Lebeaux (1986), I think that nouns like trip or event are not event nominals (what Grimshaw calls simple event nominals) in the same way that the deverbal noun presentation is not an event nominal in (i). When presentation does not take arguments it cannot express an event; thus, for instance, it cannot be modified by the modifier frequent (ii), which requires an event reading. Trip (iii) and event (iv) do not take arguments and do not have an event interpretation; analogously, then, they cannot be modified by the modifier frequent: (i) A presentation that lasts three hours cannot be good. (ii) The (*frequent) presentation is desirable. (iii) The (*frequent) trip tires him. (iv) The (*frequent) event tires him. Trip, event,or presentation in (i-ii) are simply concrete or result nouns referring to entities with temporal extension; yet this does not render them event nominals.
Grimshaw (1990) mentions some additional differences between event and result nominals. For example, event (but not result) nominals do not pluralize (i-ii) and do not allow the indefinite article (which is not testable in Hebrew, as it has only a definite article): (i) ha-harisot nir’u lemeraxok. the-destructions were+seen from+afar ‘The destructions were seen from afar’ (ii) * harisot ha-’ir bi-mehirut destructions the-city in-quickness(=quickly)
Likewise, event nominals do not allow dative pronouns, unlike verbs (for arguments that indirect objects are datives and not PPs, see Borer 1984 ). This shows that the occurrence of dative pronouns, too, is contingent upon the presence of a verbal element: (i) * haxzarat-o la ‘et ha-kesef refund-his to+her ACC the-money As will become clear from the contrast between (29) and (31) in section 3.4.1, for dative pronouns a verbal environment suffices, but not for accusative pronouns, which actually require structural accusative Case (for discussion, see Friedemann and Siloni 1993). Ur Shlonsky (personal communication) points out that when the pronoun is stressed, its occurrence in noun phrases does not result in ungrammaticality (ii). This may suggest that strong (stressed) pronouns can bear inherent Case: (ii) ? kri’at ha-mefaked rak ‘0TO le-seder calling the-commander only HIM to-order
Data of the type in (41) also argue against Grimshaw’s (1990) claim that the external argument of event nominals is suppressed on a par with the external argument of passives (see note 2). Grimshaw’s unified analysis does not explain the fact that the omission of the external argument is not equally constrained in nominal environments and in passives, as already observed by Szabolcsi (1992, 1994 ).
Recall that Agent oriented adverbials and rationale clauses are licensed in Hebrew noun phrases that do not contain a phonetically realized Agent (see section 3.1 and the examples below). According to Roberts (1987), they must be licensed by a structurally realized Agent. But see Williams (1985), Lasnik 0988), and Grimshaw (1990) for the claim that they are licensed by the event: (i) harisat ha-1k be-zadon destruction the city in-maliciousness(=maliciously) (ii) hafcacat ha-’ir kedey le-havri’ax to§avim bombing the city in+order to-drive+away inhabitants
This is inconsistent with Belletti and Rizzi’s (1988) proposal that Burzio’s generalization applies to structural accusative only. Moreover, the availability of inherent accusative Case with passives and unaccusatives (29) should be further investigated in light of the conclusion drawn in the text. I leave it for future research.
According to Grimshaw (1990), however, subjects of event nominals as well as referential adjectives are not true arguments either. The present study, of course, diverges from Grimshaw on this matter.
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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Siloni, T. (1997). Event Nominals. In: Noun Phrases and Nominalizations. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 40. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8863-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8863-8_3
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