nominalizations of french psychological verbs - Fachbereich ...

In: J. Quer, J. Schroten, M. Scorretti, P. Sleeman, und E. Verheugd Selected
Papers from 'Going Romance', Amsterdam, 6-8 December 2001. Amsterdam:
Benjamins 2003, 235-250.
NOMINALIZATIONS OF FRENCH PSYCHOLOGICAL
VERBS.
SYNTACTIC COMPLEMENTS AND SEMANTIC PARTICIPANTS. ∗
JUDITH MEINSCHAEFER
University of Konstanz, Germany
1. Introduction
This paper addresses the question of how derived nominalizations realize
their arguments. If argument realization in derived nominalizations is subject to
the same rules as argument realization in verbs, differences in argument structure
between verbs and nominalizations must relate to the morphological process of
nominalization, which has been claimed by some to affect the argument structure
of a lexeme. If, on the contrary, argument realization in verbs and nouns is
governed by different rules, differences in argument structure might arise from
these different rules. In this paper, this question is addressed on the basis of the
grammaticality contrast exemplified in (1) and (2). The base verbs in (1a) and
(2a) are both transitive verbs with a similar meaning. Still, the derived
nominalizations in (1b) and (2b) present a striking difference with regard to how
their arguments can be realized by syntactic complements.
(1) a. Le livre l’a fasciné.
“The book fascinated him.”
b. La fascination du livre m’a surpris.
“The fascination of the book surprised me.”
∗ This work was supported by the DFG through its SFB 471 in Konstanz. I would like to thank
Carmen Kelling, Bruce Mayo, Christoph Schwarze, and two anonymous reviewers for their
comments on earlier versions of this paper, and to Martine Lorenz-Bourjot for helping me with the
data. All remaining errors are mine.

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JUDITH MEINSCHAEFFER
(2) a. La lettre l’a déçue.
“The letter deceived her.”
b. #La déception de la lettre m’a surpris.
“The deception of the letter surprised me.”
It is argued that the grammaticality contrast in (1) and (2) is correlated with
a difference in the semantic structure of the underlying verbs. It is further argued
that the contrast can be explained by assuming that the realization of arguments,
or better, of semantic participants, of derived nominalizations can be projected
from the underlying semantic form of the verbs involved, drawing on three
realization rules for semantic participants of nominalizations. The discussion is
restricted to psychological verbs and their derived nominalizations, because only
within this semantic class we find verbs showing the same surface syntax and
similar meaning, but presenting derived nouns contrasting crucially in how their
semantic participants can be realized.
The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 introduces some
characteristics of psychological verbs and nominalizations in French. In section
3, a number of descriptive generalizations about the realization of semantic
participants in psychological nominalizations are presented. Section 4 explores
the difference between classes of psychological verbs. In section 5, semantic
representations for three classes of psychological verbs are introduced. In section
6, I propose three participant-realization rules by means of which the descriptive
generalizations stated in section 3 can be derived from the semantic
representations given in section 5.
2. Psychological verbs as a semantic class
By psychological verbs, we mean verbs denoting an attitudinal or emotional
relation between two entities, where the precise nature of this relation is part of
the lexical meaning of the verb. Examples are given in (3).
(3) chagriner “grieve”, mépriser “scorn”, regretter “regret”, angoisser
“afflict”, amuser “amuse”, étonner “astonish”, fasciner “fascinate”
One constant property of psychological verbs appears to be that their semantic
representation (on some level) includes an entity experiencing the attitudinal or
emotional relation denoted by the verb; hence, these verbs are sometimes
subsumed under the class of ‘experiencer verbs’. In the examples given in (4),
the experiencing entity is realized as subject in (a), as direct object in (b), and as
indirect object in (c).

237 NOMINALIZATIONS OF FRENCH PSYCHOLOGICAL VERBS
(4) a. Lili adore sa petite sœur.
“Lili adores her little sister.”
b. Ce tableau l’a toujours fasciné.
“This picture has always fascinated him.”
c. Cette chanson ne plaît pas à Natalie.
“This song does not please Natalie.”
The thematic roles assigned to the arguments of psychological verbs are
sometimes said to include the roles EXPERIENCER (of the attitudinal or emotional
relation), THEME (what is experienced), or CAUSE or STIMULUS (of the
experience). But it remains unclear whether the arguments of different classes of
psychological verbs are assigned the same thematic roles (as assumed, e.g., by
Belletti & Rizzi 1988; Grimshaw 1990) or different thematic roles (e.g., Pesetsky
1995; Iwata 1995;Wanner 2001), given that their syntactic realizations differ
considerably, cf. (4a-c).
Here, we assume that psychological verbs constitute a class of verbs sharing
certain lexical and conceptual features, but not necessarily sharing the same
thematic grid. Therefore, in the following we do not speak of arguments as
bearing certain thematic roles. Instead, we assume that the semantic participants
of psychological predicates are assigned two kinds of semantic or conceptual
roles, that of ‘experiencing entity’ and that of ‘target or cause of the experience’.
At this point in the discussion, we distinguish only two classes of
psychological verbs, on the basis of how the two semantic participants are
realized syntactically: psychological verbs realizing the experiencing entity as
subject are termed ‘experiencer-subject verbs’ or ES-verbs; psychological verbs
realizing the experiencing entity as direct object are termed ‘experiencer-object
verbs’ or EO-verbs. Examples for both verb classes are given in (5a) and (5b),
respectively.
(5) a. ES-verbs: mépriser “scorn”, adorer “adore”, souhaiter “wish”
b. EO-verbs: réconforter “comfort”, étonner “astonish”
The next section addresses the question of how nominalizations derived from
verbs of the two classes realize the semantic participants of the events they
denote.
3. Psychological nominals and their syntactic complements
In French, nominalizations can be derived from verbs by means of
affixation of different nominalizing affixes, such as -ation or -ement, as
exemplified in (6a) and (6b). In addition, nominalizations can be derived without

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affixation, as in (6c). Finally, we find non-derived psychological nominals, as in
(6d).
(6) a. admiration “admiration”, from admirer “admire”
b. étonnement “astonishment”, from étonner “astonish”
c. regret “regret”, from regretter “regret”
d. intérêt “interest”, from Latin interest “it is important”
A crucial difference between verbs and derived nominalizations is that for
verbs, syntactic realization of semantic participants is obligatory, while for
nominalizations (as well as for non-derived nominals) it is optional. Therefore, it
is controversial whether the syntactic complements of nominalizations
corresponding to arguments of the base verbs should be termed arguments too, or
whether they should rather be classified as adjuncts (e.g., Dowty 1989;
Grimshaw 1990; Zucchi 1993:135; Alexiadou 2001:66). This question is not
addressed here; when referring to phrases like de Max (‘de-phrase’) or pour sa
faute (‘pour-phrase’), the term ‘complement’ is used. Likewise, we do not speak
of arguments of lexemes as bearing thematic roles, but we do speak of semantic
participants of events denoted by lexemes as bearing the semantic or conceptual
roles ‘experiencing entity’ and ‘target or cause of the experience’. We then say
that the complements of derived nominalizations realize the semantic
participants of the event denoted by the nominalization, or that they refer to the
semantic participants.
In French, nominalizations derived from psychological verbs basically
dispose of three types of syntactic constructions to realize semantic participants
in the event denoted: prepositional phrases headed by de “of”, prepositional
phrases headed by prepositions other than de, such as par “by” and pour “for”,
and possessive determiners like son, sa “his, her, its”. The distribution of
possessive determiners is not discussed here (cf. Zubizarreta 1987:68).
First, de-phrases can realize both the experiencing entity and the target or
cause of the experience, (7b) and (7c). The sentence given in (7a) serves to
disambiguate the conceptual roles of the two semantic participants.
(7) a. Max regrette sa faute.
“Max regrets his mistake.”
b. le regret de Max
“the regret of Max”
c. le regret de la faute
“the regret of the mistake”

239 NOMINALIZATIONS OF FRENCH PSYCHOLOGICAL VERBS
As can be seen in (8), the same holds for non-derived psychological nominals
like intérêt “interest”. Again, the sentence given in (8a) is intended to
disambiguate the conceptual roles.
(8) a. Nicolas s’intéresse aux détails.
“Nicolas is interested in the details.”
b. l’intérêt de Nicolas
“the interest of Nicolas”
c. l’intérêt des détails
“the interest of the details”
Second, par-phrases can occur only with EO-verbs, as in (9a, b), but not
with ES-verbs, (9c). Where a par-phrase is grammatical, it refers to the target or
cause of the experience; it cannot refer to the experiencing entity.
(9) a. le recours à des techniques de fascination par l'image (Le
Monde)
“the recourse to techniques of fascination by images”
b. la déception par le Gault Millau (WWW)
“the deception by the Gault Millau”
b. #l’admiration de cet auteur par Natalie
“the admiration of this author by Natalie”
With a number of nominalizations derived from EO-verbs, a par-phrase is
considered ungrammatical by some speakers. Some derived psychological
nominalizations, however, do allow a par-phrase. Among those nominalizations
for which I have found corpus 1 examples with a par-phrase are affliction
“affliction”, consolation “comfort”, déception “deception”, désappointement
“disappointment”, fascination “fascination”, satisfaction “satisfaction”,
stupéfaction “stupefaction”. Nominalizations derived without affixation, like
réconfort “comfort”, as well as non-derived psychological nominals, like chagrin
“grieve”, and deadjectival psychological nominalizations, like inquiétude
“anxiety”, do not occur with par-phrases.
Third, prepositional phrases headed by pour occur primarily with
nominalizations derived from ES-verbs. Pour-phrases refer to the target or cause
1 Using the database Frantext (http://zeus.inalf.cnrs.fr/frantext.htm), sequences of the type
‘nominalization’ + par were searched in texts dating from 1900 to 2000. In addition, the relevant
sequences were searched in the WWW, using the search engine Google (http://www.google.fr).

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JUDITH MEINSCHAEFFER
of the experience, as in (10a), but not to the experiencing entity, (10b). With
(most) EO-verbs, they can realize neither participant, (10c) and (10d). 2
(10) a. l’admiration du lecteur pour ce livre
“the admiration of the reader for this book”
b. #l’admiration de ce livre pour le lecteur
“the admiration of this book for the reader”
c. #l’amusement des enfants pour ce jeu
“the amusement of the children for this play”
d. #l’amusement de ce jeu pour les enfants
“the amusement of this play for the children”
Pour-phrases are also found with non-deverbal psychological nominals; they
likewise refer to the target or cause of the experience, but not to the experiencing
entity, see (11).
(11) a. Nicolas s’intéresse aux détails.
“Nicolas is interested in the details.”
b. #l’intérêt pour Nicolas
“the interest for Nicolas”
c. l’intérêt pour les détails
“the interest for the details”
Interestingly, de-phrases do not show the same distribution with respect to
all classes of psychological nominalizations, as exemplified by (1) and (2) above.
De-phrase complements of ES-nominalizations can realize either the experiencing
entity, as in (7b) above, or the target or cause of the experience, (7c) above. The
same is true for de-phrase complements of some EO-nominalizations, like
fascination. In (12b), the de-phrase refers to the experiencing entity; in (12c), it
refers to the target or cause of the experience.
(12) a. L’orateur a fasciné l’auditoire.
“The speaker fascinated the audience.”
b. La fascination de l’auditoire était facile.
“The fascination of the audience was easy.”
c. La fascination de l’orateur m’a surpris.
“The fascination of the speaker surprised me.”
2 Still, one does find phrases like la fascination de ce livre pour les lecteurs contemporains “the
fascination of this book for contemporary readers”. Examples of this type are discussed in section 6.

241 NOMINALIZATIONS OF FRENCH PSYCHOLOGICAL VERBS
Other EO-verbs, however, like déception, do not allow de-phrases to refer to the
target or cause of the experience, (13c); rather, they permit only de-phrases that
refer to the experiencing entity, as in (13b). 3
(13) a. La réalité a déçu la jeune fille.
“Reality deceived the young girl.”
b. La déception de la jeune fille survint quand elle avait seize ans.
“The deception of the young girl supervened when she was
sixteen.”
c. #La déception de la réalité m’a surpris.
“The deception of reality surprised me.”
I have not found any underived psychological nouns sharing the properties of
derived nominalizations like déception. Still, some deadjectival nominalizations
do present the same type of argument realization. Thus, the deadjectival noun
inquiétude “anxiety” occurs with a de-phrase realizing the experiencing entity,
(14b), but it cannot occur with a de-phrase referring to the target or cause of the
experience, (14c).
(14) a. Ses paroles ont inquiété l’enfant.
“His words troubled the child.”
b. L’inquiétude de l’enfant (à propos de ses paroles) était évidente.
“The anxiety of the child (about his words) was evident.”
c. #L’inquiétude de ses paroles m’a surpris.
“The anxiety of his words surprised me.”
It is interesting to note that déception-nominalizations behave like
nominalizations derived from canonical transitive verbs like destruction, in that
they show an effect of ‘suppression’ of the argument which is realized as subject
of the underlying verb (Grimshaw 1990:107), as exemplified in (15).
3 Corpus analyses have shown that one does find examples like (27a, b) below, where the de-phrase
refers to a participant which might at first glance appear to be like a target or cause of the experience.
In such expressions, however, déception de x “deception of x” has rather the meaning of x est une
déception “x is a deception” or x est ce qui déçoit “x is what deceives” than the meaning of x a déçu
“x has deceived”. While these cases certainly merit a closer analysis, they are clearly distinct from
the examples studied in this paper.
(27) a. ce roman m’exposait [...] à toutes les déceptions du réel (Yourcenar, 1931, Frantext)
“this novel exposed me [...] to all the deceptions of the real”
b. La déception de mon corps, j’en prenais mon parti. (Beauvoir, 1954, Frantext)
“The deception of my body, I came to terms with it.”

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(15) a. the destruction of the city (by the enemy)
a’. la destruction de la ville (par l’armée)
b. the enemy’s destruction of the city
c. #the destruction of the enemy [if enemy ~ subject of destroy]
c’ #la destruction de l’armée [if armée ~ subject of détruire]
This effect of ‘argument suppression’ has led some researchers to describe
nominalization as an operation similar to passive formation (Grimshaw 1990), or
to conceive of nominalizations as ergative constructions (Williams 1987;
Alexiadou 2001). For the psychological nominalizations investigated here, we
find a minimal contrast in grammaticality, with one class of verbs allowing
realization of both participants in a de-phrase, and with the other class showing
‘argument suppression’ (Grimshaw 1990). At the same time, the underlying
verbs present no differences in surface syntax, with both classes realizing the
experiencing entity as the direct object. In the following, we propose to show
that this contrast in grammaticality can be related to semantic differences of the
underlying verbs. To this aim, in the next section we propose that two classes of
EO-verbs can be distinguished in French on the basis of aspectual criteria.
4. Aspectual features of psychological verbs
The two classes of EO-verbs distinguished in the previous section present
differences with respect to their compatibility with aspectual adverbials (cf.
Voorst 1992 for a more comprehensive account). Fasciner-verbs are compatible
with adverbs of duration like pendant longtemps “for a long time“, as in (16a),
but they are less felicitous with adverbial expressions implying the existence of a
target state, like en peu de temps “in little time“, see (16b). Décevoir-verbs show
the opposite distribution; they are not felicitous with adverbs of duration, (16c),
but they are compatible with target state oriented expressions, (16d).
(16) a. Le livre l’a fasciné pendant longtemps.
“The book fascinated him for a long time.”
b. #Le livre l’a fasciné en peu de temps.
“The book fascinated him in little time.”
c. #Le livre l’a déçu pendant longtemps.
“The book deceived him for a long time.”
d. Le livre l’a déçu en peu de temps.
“The book deceived him in little time.”
As can be seen from their distribution relative to adverbial expressions, fascinerverbs
are not telic, i.e., they do not imply a target state, while décevoir-verbs are

243 NOMINALIZATIONS OF FRENCH PSYCHOLOGICAL VERBS
telic, i.e. they do imply a target state (cf. Vendler 1967; Dowty 1979; Smith
1997). Hence, the syntactic difference between the two classes of EO-verbs is
correlated with an aspectual difference.
In fact, there are even aspectual differences between the ES and EO classes:
ES-verbs are stative, while EO-verbs are non-stative. That ES-verbs are stative,
can be inferred from their incompatibility with progressive constructions, e.g.,
with the French paraphrase être en train de (Borillo 1988; Smith 1997), cf. (17).
(17) #Max est en train de regretter sa faute.
“Max is regretting his mistake.”
EO-verbs, in contrast, are non-stative, since they are compatible with progressive
operators (unless they are telic and punctual, like décevoir), as in (18).
(18) a. L’acteur est en train de fasciner le public.
“The actor is fascinating the audience.”
b. Le clown est en train d’amuser les enfants.
“The clown is amusing the children.”
Hence, we distinguish three aspectual classes of psychological verbs in
French. First, ES-verbs are stative. Besides regretter, verbs like admirer
“admire”, estimer “estimate” belong to this class. Second, some EO-verbs, i.e.,
fasciner-verbs, are non-stative and atelic. With derived nominalizations, both
semantic participants can be realized in a de-phrase. Besides fasciner, verbs like
dégoûter “disgust”, humilier “humiliate”, tracasser “worry” belong to this class.
Verbs of this class denote psychological processes where the attitude or emotion
can be ascribed to the experiencing entity only in the presence of the target or
cause of the experience. Third, other EO-verbs, i.e., décevoir-verbs, are nonstative
and telic. With derived nominalizations, only one of the semantic
participants can be realized in a de-phrase. Besides décevoir, many deadjectival
psychological verbs, e.g. attrister “sadden”, contenter “content”, as well as many
punctual psychological verbs, e.g. étonner “astonish”, émerveiller “amaze”,
surprendre “surprise” belong to this class. Verbs of this class denote
psychological events where the attitude or emotion can be ascribed to the
experiencing entity not only in the presence, but also in the absence of the target
or cause of the experience. Finally, note that we find in French non-derived
psychological nouns whose participant-realizing properties correspond to
nominalizations derived from regretter-verbs and to fasciner-verbs, while we
find only deadjectival psychological nominalizations sharing the participantrealizing
properties of nominalizations derived from décevoir-verbs. The next
section proposes semantic representations for the three classes of psychological

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verbs. In section 6, it is shown that, drawing on three additional realization rules,
the correct distribution of the different types of complements to psychological
nominalizations can be derived from the semantic representations proposed for
the verbs.
5. Semantic representations for psychological verbs
It is a commonly held assumption in lexical semantics that the meaning of a
lexeme can be decomposed into atomic predicates. One of the basic claims of
such an approach is that verbs sharing certain atomic predicates also share some
of their grammatical properties. Hence, the decompositional semantic
representation of a lexeme is claimed to encode not only the meaning, but also
some of the grammatical properties of this lexeme. Within a decompositional
framework, the analysis presented here aims at deriving the argument-realizing
properties of three different classes of psychological nominalizations from the
meaning of the underlying verbs. To this end, I propose that the meanings of the
three verb classes from which the nominalizations are derived can be represented
as in (19).
(19) a. regretter PSYCH_RELATION (x, y)
b. fasciner CAUSE (ACT (y), PSYCH_RELATION (x, y))
c. étonner CAUSE (ACT (y), CHANGE (PSYCH_STATE (x))) 4
The decompositional representations are intended to be interpreted in terms
of the paraphrases given in (20).
(20) a. “If x regrets y, then x stands in a psychological relation to y.”
b. “If y fascinates x, then some action of y causes x to stand in a
psychological relation to y.”
c. “If y astonishes x, then some action of y causes x to come to be
in a psychological state.”
Note that, since we are interested here in expressing generalizations concerning
the relation between semantic participants and syntactic complements, but not in
properties of individual lexical items, the representations in (19) consist entirely
of highly general atomic predicates like CAUSE, ACT, PSYCH_STATE, termed ‘base
predicates’, abstracting away from semantic differences which do not appear to
be reflected in the syntactic realization of semantic participants.
4 For this class of psychological verbs, similar representations have been proposed by Wanner (2001)
and Iwata (1995). The assumption that EO-verbs are causative is also made in some syntactic
accounts of psychological verbs (e.g., Pesetsky 1995).

245 NOMINALIZATIONS OF FRENCH PSYCHOLOGICAL VERBS
The base predicates in (19) are intended as representations of how the
arguments of a lexeme participate in the event denoted by the lexeme. In other
words, the conceptual roles assigned to the semantic participants of the event
denoted by the lexeme can be inferred from the base predicates (cf. Jackendoff
1987). More precisely, it is assumed here that the first participant of a
psychological relation (PSYCH_RELATION) is an experiencing entity, and the
second participant of a psychological relation is the target of the experience; cf.
(21a). Likewise, the (single) participant of a psychological state (PSYCH_STATE)
is an experiencing entity; cf. (21b). The (single) participant of an action (ACT) is
an agent; cf. (21c).
Note that at this point, we can dissociate the roles ‘target of the experience’
and ‘cause of the experience’, which have been conflated throughout the
previous paragraphs as ‘target or cause of the experience’. By ‘cause of the
experience’, we denote the participant which is introduced as an argument of the
predicate standing in a causal relation to a a psychological state or relation, cf.
(21d).
(21) a. PSYCH_RELATION (experiencing entity, target of the experience)
b. PSYCH_STATE (experiencing entity)
c. ACT (agent)
d. ‘cause of the experience’: participant causing a psychological
state or relation
Finally, we assume by convention that psychological relations (represented
by PSYCH_RELATION) and psychological states (represented by PSYCH_STATE) are
states, i.e., they are stative; actions (represented by ACT) are processes, i.e., they
are non-stative and atelic; changes of state (represented by CHANGE
(PSYCH_STATE)) are events, i.e., they are non-stative and telic (cf. Mourelatos
1978; Smith 1997). Let us further stipulate that in the case of complex
predications, only the aspectual type of the aspectually highest predicate is
projected onto the complex predication, where the hierarchy is
‘event > process > state’ (cf. Ehrich & Rapp 2000), with ‘>’ meaning “is
aspectually higher than”. Under this assumption, verbs with a semantic structure
as in (19a), i.e., ES-verbs, denote states. Verbs with a semantic structure as in
(19b), i.e., EO-fasciner-verbs, denote processes, and verbs with a semantic
structure as in (19c), i.e., EO-décevoir-verbs, denote events.
To conclude, the representations given in (19) for the three different classes
of verbs encode the aspectual type of the denoted event as well as the conceptual
roles assigned to the participants of the denoted event. In the next section, we
will see that, drawing on three additional participant-realization rules, we can

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derive the syntactic realization of the semantic participants for the derived
nominalizations from the representations in (19).
6. Participant-realization rules for psychological nominalizations
Section 3 above described which types of prepositional phrases (de-phrase,
pour-phrase, par-phrase) occur with which class of psychological
nominalizations (derived from ES-verbs and two types of EO-verbs), and to
which semantic participants (experiencing entity, target or cause of the
experience) these can refer. The present section aims at formulating three
participant-realization rules by means of which the descriptive generalizations
stated in section 3 can be derived from the semantic representations given in
section 5. In particular, we want to derive the differing behavior of EO-verbs of
the fasciner-type and of EO-verbs of the décevoir-type with regard to which
semantic participant can be realized in a de-phrase. For convenience, the
semantic representations of the verbs are repeated in (22).
(22) a. ES regretter PSYCH_RELATION (x, y)
b. EO fasciner CAUSE (ACT (y), PSYCH_RELATION (x, y))
c. EO décevoir CAUSE (ACT (y), CHANGE (PSYCH_STATE (x)))
As to the de-phrase, regret-nominalizations, as well as fascinationnominalizations,
can realize both participants; experiencing entity and target of
the experience. Déception-nominalizations, in contrast, can realize only the
experiencing entity, i.e., the participant over which the resulting psychological
state is predicated.
According to the semantic representations proposed here, the semantic
forms of fasciner-verbs and décevoir-verbs have identical first elements; the
structure of the first element should therefore play no role. Furthermore,
regretter-verbs and fasciner-verbs (which behave alike) have identical second
elements, while fasciner-verbs and décevoir-verbs (which show the contrast)
differ with regard to the second element of the predication. Hence, the relevant
difference should reside in the second element of the complex predications. More
precisely, for fasciner-verbs (as well as for regretter-verbs), the second element
contains two arguments, while for décevoir-verbs, the second element contains
but a single argument. In other words, for verbs of the fasciner-type, the state
which is caused is transitive, i.e., it is a psychological relation, while for verbs of
the décevoir-type, it is intransitive, i.e., it is a psychological state. The
generalization which can be drawn is then that the semantic participants which
can be realized by the de-phrase are those which appear in the second, or

247 NOMINALIZATIONS OF FRENCH PSYCHOLOGICAL VERBS
rightmost, element of the complex predication. If this element is transitive, both
arguments can be realized in a de-phrase; if it is intransitive, only one argument
can be realized in a de-phrase. Hence, if the interpretation of de-phrase
complements of deverbal nominalizations is sensitive to which participants
appear as arguments of the second, or rightmost, element, the difference between
EO-nominalizations of the fascination-type and those of the déception-type
receives a straightforward interpretation. We therefore propose that the rule in
(23) regulates how semantic participants are realized by de-phrase complements
of nominalizations.
(23) Rule 1: De-phrases can refer to the semantic participants introduced
by the rightmost predicate in the semantic form.
Note that this is a ‘positive’ formulation (cf. Markantonatou 1995 for a similar
proposal) of a previously made ‘negative’ generalization about nominalizations
of the destruction-type, cf. (15) above. This generalization has previously been
referred to as ‘suppression’ of the external argument (i.e., of the agent or causer),
(Grimshaw 1990; Alexiadou 2001), and it has also been termed ‘causer deletion’
(Iwata 1995). Hence, previous approaches have argued that the agent or causer,
i.e., the semantic participant of the leftmost predicate, cannot be realized by ofphrases
in English, corresponding to French de-phrases, because it is suppressed
or deleted from the argument structure. The present proposal, in contrast, argues
that a semantic participant which has the conceptual role of agent or causer can
be realized in a de-phrase in French, but only if it has, in addition, a role to play
in the rightmost predicate. Thus, the argument ‘suppression’ effect found for
destruction-nominalizations and déception-nominalizations, but not for
fascination-nominalizations, is claimed to arise from the participant-realization
rule in (23).
The second generalization drawn in section 2 stated that prepositional
phrases headed by par can be interpreted only as referring to semantic
participants of events denoted by EO-verbs. In addition, it was said that a parphrase
can refer only to what was termed the target or cause of the experience,
but not to the experiencing entity. Looking at the semantic representations in
(22), we see that EO-verbs, i.e., fasciner-verbs and décevoir-verbs, share their
leftmost element, i.e., ACT, the presence or absence of which furthermore
distinguishes EO-verbs from ES-verbs. Therefore, we assume that it is the
semantic participant introduced by ACT, i.e., the agent, which can be realized in a
par-phrase. This generalization is formulated in (24).
(24) Rule 2 : Par-phrases can refer to the semantic participant introduced
by ACT, i.e., to the agent.

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JUDITH MEINSCHAEFFER
Finally, prepositional phrases headed by pour were said to occur only with
ES-nominalizations, but not with EO- nominalizations; they can refer to the target
of the experience, but not to the experiencing entity. This observation, however,
immediately raises the question why for EO- nominalizations the target of the
experience cannot be realized in a pour-phrase. What is then the relevant
difference between ES-verbs and EO-verbs of the fasciner-type? One difference
consists in the aspectual type of the verbs: ES-verbs are stative, while EOfasciner-verbs
are non-stative.
Evidence that stativity is indeed a factor governing the distribution of pourphrases
can be gained from the examples in (25), showing that pour-phrases are
grammatical with nominalizations of the fascination-type, but only under certain
circumstances.
(25) a. la fascination progressive de ce livre / par ce livre
“the growing fascination of this book / by this book”
b. l’énorme fascination de ce livre / #par ce livre
“the enormous fascination of this book / by this book”
c. une énorme fascination pour ce livre
“an enormous fascination for this book”
As shown by (25a), fascination is a process nominalization (as demonstrated by
the adjective progressif “growing”); it is compatible with a de-phrase or parphrase.
(25b) shows that fascination can have a second interpretation: it can
occur with the degree-modifying adjective énorme “enormous”, which we
assume to modify (stative) qualities, but not (non-stative) processes. Thus, when
fascination has a stative interpretation, as in (25b), the de-phrase is still possible,
but the par-phrase appears to be less felicitous. Importantly, with a stative
interpretation, fascination is compatible also with a pour-phrase, as in (25c). We
therefore propose that the rule in (26) regulates the interpretation of pourphrases.
(26) Rule 3: Pour-phrases can refer to the second semantic participant
introduced by PSYCH_RELATION, i.e., to the target of experience, of
stative predicates.
To conclude, this section has shown that the distribution and interpretation
of syntactic complements of psychological nominalizations can be derived from
the semantic representations introduced in section 5, by drawing on three
additional rules governing the realization of semantic participants by three types
of syntactic complements. The lexical representations and the participant-

249 NOMINALIZATIONS OF FRENCH PSYCHOLOGICAL VERBS
realization rules proposed can thus not only account for the grammaticality
contrast exemplified in (1) and (2), but also for the distribution of par-phrases
and pour-phrases with nominalizations derived from psychological verbs.
7. Conclusion
The paper started with the question how derived nominalizations realize
their semantic participants by means of syntactic complements. The discussion
has shown that, given appropriate semantic representations of the base verbs
from which information about conceptual roles of semantic participants can be
gained, the syntactic realization can be derived with three realization rules. A
central concern was to explain the grammaticality contrast found for two
different classes of derived nominalizations with regard to de-phrase
complements. It was shown that the contrast can be related to the semantic
structure of the underlying verbs, assuming that only certain substructures of a
complex predication are accessible for participant realization in de-phrases.
Here, it would be worthwhile participant realization in verbs. As to the other two
types of syntactic complements discussed, par-phrases and pour-phrases, it was
argued that they are subject to realization rules sensitive to particular conceptual
roles of participants and aspectual features of the underlying verbs. It would be
interesting to see whether these rules can be related to a more general account of
the semantics of the prepositions par and pour. In sum, the discussion has shown
that participant realization in nominalizations is governed by rules different from
those regulating participant realization in verbs. This assumption receives further
support from the observation that non-derived psychological nominals as well as
deadjectival psychological nominalizations realize participants in a similar way
as deverbal nominalizations.
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