The argument structure of deverbal nouns in Brazilian Portuguese

inflectionally derived lexemes. Haspelmath refers to processes of derivation by means
of transpositional inflection, which are very productive in a great number of
languages. The way of representing this process of transpositional inflection is
reflected in the hybrid character of the resultant forms, as illustrated by (50), which
represents the German form singende.
(50) der im Wald laut singV – endeAdj Wanderer
the in:the forest loud sing-PTPC hiker
‘the hiker (who is) singing loud in the forest’ (Haspelmath 1995: 44)
It seems useful to use the same strategy for other hybrid forms, too, which,
like the participle form singende, which functions as an adjective, are produced by
means of common processes of derivation. Considering that the layer called internal
syntax refers to the verb form sing and the layer called external syntax refers to the
participle form singende, I will propose the following morphosyntactic representation
to the nominal expression A destruição de Bagdá pelo exército americano ‘The
destruction of Baghdad by the American Army’:
(51) [ [d1[destru]v ição]N [de Bagdá]SP] [pelo exército americano]PP] NP
The frame in (52) is an attempt to represent the NP in accordance with the first three
levels of organization predicted by FDG.
(52) (R1[(T1) (R2) (R3) ] (R1))
(e1 [(f1) (x1)Pat (x2)Ag ] (e1 ))
[[d1[destru]v ição]N [de Bagdá]PP [pelo exército americano]PP] NP
This representation is also inspired by Hengeveld’s (2004b) way of
representing first-order deverbal nouns, like teach-er, as shown in (53). The hybrid
character of this type of noun is clearly recognizable from the label Hengeveld assigns
to the NP it heads: ‘semi-verbal noun phrases’:
(53) a teach-er
INDEF teacher-AG.NMLZ
(1 xi: (fi : teach-V (fi)) (xi)Ø) (cf. Hengeveld 2004b)
One of the discursive reasons to nominalize is the deverbal nouns’ capacity of
referring back to other predications already mentioned in the preceding text by means
of lexical substitution, as observed in (54).
(54) cri-ar um-a pessoa ou cri-ar um-a imagem
create-INF a-F person or create-INF an-F image
é mais ou menos a mesm-a coisa... n-o
be.IND.PRS.3SG more or less the.F same-F thing in-the.M
sentido de que nós est-amos cri-ando
sense of that we be.DUR-IND.PRS.1PL create-PROG
um-a coisa nov-a... d-o nada... eu não tinh-a
a-F thing new-F from-the.M nothing I not have-IND-IPFV.1SG
nada aqui pass-o a t-er a imagem
anything here pass-IND.PRS.1SG to have-INF the.F image
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