Participialnominalizer

Participialnominalizer is a linguistic device or process by which participial morphology or participial phrases function to nominalize verbal material, turning verbs or clauses into noun phrases or noun-like constituents. In practice, this can involve gerundive -ing forms (English reading, the building of the bridge) that head noun phrases, or the use of participial adjectives in prenominal position that create complex noun phrases such as the coming storm or the broken vase. The notion encompasses affixes and clitics that some languages attach to verbs to form nominalized clauses, as well as syntactic constructions in languages that lack a dedicated wordform.

Cross-linguistically, participialnominalizer use varies: in English, -ing forms can be nouns (gerunds) or adjectives; in German and other Germanic languages, Partizip I and II can participate in nominalization or in attributive adjective position; in languages with serial verb constructions, verbs can combine with nominalizers to yield nouns or noun phrases. Functionally, these nominalizations enable arguments and modifiers to be expressed as noun phrases, support relative clauses or noun incorporations, and contribute to discourse cohesion by packaging events, processes, or states as entities. Distinctions are often made between true nominalizations (the reading of the report) and participial adjectives (the unexpected discovery), with syntactic and semantic implications for agreement, case, and scope.