The Form and Interpretation of Derived Nominals
PI: Dr. Silke Fischer (2016-2018)
Researcher: Dr. Gianina Iordachioaia
Former PIs: Prof. Dr. Artemis Alexiadou (2006-2015), Prof. Dr. Klaus von Heusinger (2006-2010)
Former researchers: Dr. Regine Brandtner, Dr. Florian Schäfer
Student assistants (3rd phase): Alla Abrosimova, Katherine Fraser, Whitney Frazier Peterson, Nils Hirsch, Anastasiia Iurshina, Bethany Lochbihler, Elizabeth Long, Monique Marquez, Andreas Pairamidis, Raphael Wohlfahrt
Project B1 aims to account for the wide spectrum of variation and ambiguity in nominalizations starting with fully compositional (canonical) constructions, whose interpretation is provided step by step by their syntactic projections (i.e., their template structure), and ending with rather idiosyncratic (non-canonical) ones, whose formation heavily relies on the input provided by the root. After a thorough investigation in phase 1 of the fully compositional makeup of nominalizations with argument structure (ASNs), which by and large parallel the behavior of the original verb, in phase 2 we turned to the less studied nominalizations derived from adjectives and ambiguously stative/eventive psych verbs, whose properties are often traced back to the root, the idiosyncratic part in word formation. To complete the process, in phase 3 we will address synthetic and analytic compounds that realize arguments, since compounds are considered largely idiosyncratic in most theories of morphology.