0 INTRODUCTION

1. THE CONCEPT OF NOMINALIZATION
[t]he more a form refers to a discrete discourse entity or reports a
discrete discourse event, the more distinct will be its linguistic form
from neighboring forms, both paradigmatically and syntagmatically.
Both Du Bois (1980) and Givón (1982: 85, emphasis in the original) have pointed
out that “the coding of participants in a particular event depends on the communicative
intent of the speaker uttering the discourse, specifically on whether a particular individual
argument (NP) is going to be important enough in the subsequent discourse, i.e., whether
its specific identity is important, or only its generic type membership.”
Hopper and Thompson (1985: 174) also pay attention to nominalizations since
they illustrate very well another instance of the “Iconicity of Lexical Categories
Principle.” In this case, an originally verbal element is functioning as a noun, that is, as an
argument of another verb, as in (9a) and (9b) below. The Iconicity of Lexical Categories
Principle predicts that such verbs will signal relatively few of the oppositions associated
with cardinal event-reporting verbs. Data from a range of languages confirm this
prediction. In English, for example, tense distinctions are neutralized as can be seen in the
instances below:
1.2.3. Category shift
(9) a. We accepted her resignation.
b. The mechanization of the weaving textiles. 2
Hopper and Thompson (1985) propose that the semantic content of roots makes them
more likely to belong to one specific category rather than to another. However, languages
have derivational morphological processes for converting members of one category into
2 Weaving also included in the original. However, since it is not a nominalization, but a participle, it has not
been highlighted.
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