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Part of
East and West of The Pentacrest: Linguistic studies in honor of Paula Kempchinsky
Edited by Timothy Gupton and Elizabeth Gielau
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 33] 2021
► pp. 157–188

Chapter 8
Case assignment in Spanish nominalizations

A self-paced reading investigation

| University of Nevada, Reno
| Augustana College

Spanish nominalizations, structures in which a determiner precedes an infinitive (el susurrar de Mario “Mario’s whispering”), present a syntactic contradiction in which a verb exists within a Determiner Phrase (DP). Speakers attest two types: nominalizations co-occurring with nominal modifiers (e.g., adjectives, genitive case for argument expression) and those whose modifiers are verbal (adverbs, nominative/accusative arguments). Absent cartographic approaches (Cinque, 2002) predetermining the order of functional heads, the point in the derivation at which verbal categories transition into nominal ones, and this transition’s effect on case assignment, are thus far unanswered empirical questions. Using a self-paced reading task, we adopt Alexiadou et al.’s (2011) proposal to experimentally determine the cases available in each nominalization type. Results show that speakers process nominal nominalizations as expected but may allow for the possibility of adverbial adjunction, as suggested by Ramírez (2003). We propose that this data reveals the value of empirically testing syntactic proposals.

Keywords: Verbal nominalization, Nominal nominalization, self-paced reading, experimental syntax
Article outline
  • Dedication
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Internal structure of the Spanish Determiner Phrase
  • 3.Data and nominalization paradigms
  • 4.Additional nominal properties
  • 5.Additional verbal properties
    • 5.1Agents/subjects
    • 5.2Themes/objects
    • 5.3Adverbs, tense, and outer/inner aspect
  • 6. Alexiadou et al. (2011)
  • 7.Methodology and predictions
    • 7.1Participants
    • 7.2Materials
  • 8.Results
    • 8.1Data treatment and analysis
    • 8.2Results: Analysis of reading times
  • 9.Discussion and conclusions
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 10 May 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.33.08lea
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