0 INTRODUCTION

1. THE CONCEPT OF NOMINALIZATION
word-formation process “involv[ing] the formation of a noun from bases of other
classes, by affixation, conversion, or phonological modification.”
Finally, the term is also used, not for the syntactic or morphological processes
involved in the derivation of the nominals in (1) to (3), but for the resulting nouns
themselves. Thus nouns such as hunting (< hunt), claim (< claim), destruction
(< destroy), refusal (< refuse) or marriage (< marry) can be described as examples of
nominalizations. Such nouns need not be abstract, as concrete nouns can also count as
nominalizations. Quirk et al. (1985: 1289), for instance, draw attention to nouns such as
writer (< write) and liar (< lie) as instances of nominalization.
In this piece of research, these three closely related senses of ‘nominalization’ will be
employed interchangeably. However, the analysis will be restricted only to abstract
nominalizations. In other words, concrete nouns, such as writer, liar and the like, will not
be considered since this study is devoted to analyzing the complex nature of those items
that, being nominal in nature, refer to actions or processes just as verbs do. The term
nominalization is thus used here in a broad sense, to subsume both nominalizations
proper, that is gerundial (Reading it is interesting), infinitival (To read it is interesting),
and that-clauses (That I read it is impossible) which occur in clause structure in slots
usually filled by ordinary nouns, and also the kind of related formation that Chomsky
(1970: 188) labelled derived nominals, such as destruction in (4) below:
(4) The destruction of the city was a disaster.
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