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Part of
Finiteness and Nominalization
Edited by Claudine Chamoreau and Zarina Estrada-Fernández
[Typological Studies in Language 113] 2016
► pp. 141–170

On the tightrope between infinitives and action nouns

The case of Otomi nominalizations

| SeDyL (UMR-8202), CNRS

In this paper, I study the distribution of two nominalization structures in two closely related Amerindian languages of Mexico (Eastern Otomi and Northern Otomi). The structures involve intransitive nominalizations depicting a customary activity performed by humans (‘hunting’, ‘sowing’, etc.) as they appear in a complementation frame. I address the question of whether these nominalization structures in Otomi are morphologically non-finite forms or are just nouns. I show how a cognate structure in two close languages can be found in the two opposing ends of a nominalization scale: in Eastern Otomi, the structure is inflectional and should be analyzed as an intransitive infinitive, while its equivalent in Northern Otomi should be seen as an action deverbal noun.

Keywords: action noun, complement, deverbal noun, infinitive, Otomi
Published online: 23 June 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.113.07pal
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