Publications

Publication details [#6524]

Heyvaert, Liesbet. 1998. Non-agentive deverbal -er nominalization in English and Dutch: a contrastive analysis. Languages in Contrast 1 (2) : 211–244.
Publication type
Article in jnl/bk
Publication language
English
Source language
Target language
Journal DOI
10.1075/lic

Abstract

This paper deals with non-agentive deverbal -er nominals in English and Dutch. It attempts to provide a grammatico-semantic explanation for the extension of agentive to non-agentive -er, and argues that the profile of the -er suffix, irrespective of whether it is agentive or non-agentive, is comparable to that of the subject-function of a clausal structure. Whereas in English, the most important clausal agnate turns out to be the middle construction (e.g. this book reads easily), Dutch non-agentive -er nominals are shown to agnate with various structures, notably middle formation: especially the occurrence of intransitive or 'circumstantial' middles, and the frequent use of 'let'-constructions in contexts where English would use a middle offer evidence of the Dutch potential to construe non-agentive entities as subjects.
Source : Bitra