Do Good or Suffer Evil: Syntactic Nominalisations in Verbal Multi-Word Expressions in the PARSEME GRC Corpus

Abstract The PARSEME GRC guidelines distinguish between Light-Verb Constructions, such as to make a suggestion , and Verbal Idioms, such as to kick the bucket . Light-Verb Constructions need to contain a nominal element that is abstract and predicative. Verbal Idioms are lexically, morphologically, morphosyntactically, and syntactically inflexible. Syntactic nominalisations as the nominal element are usually disregarded especially in Light-Verb Constructions due to their structural and functional ambiguity. (Post)classical Greek has productive morpho-syntactic means for the nominalisation of any part of speech which are not restricted e.g. diatopically or distratically, whereas lexical nominalisation by means of derivational morphology is more restricted. This makes the exclusion of syntactic nominalisations seem artificial. When considering the eventiveness of the nominal component the crucial characteristic it emerges that non-deverbal and underived event nouns, including syntactic nominalisations, can in fact be predicative nouns in verbal multi-word expressions. Syntactic nominalisations can appear as predicative nouns in Light-Verb Constructions along with forming part of Verbal Idioms. Synchronically, verbal multi-word expressions containing a syntactic nominalisation can be gap fillers, indexical alternatives, or semantico-pragmatic alternatives to structures with a lexical nominalisation. The study is primarily based on the PARSEME GRC and ECF Leverhulme Sketch Engine corpora of literary classical Attic philosophical prose, historiography, and oratory.