Use it or lose it : secondary imperfectivizers in Slovenian deverbal nominalizations

The empirical focus of this paper is a subtype of deverbal lec-nominalizations, specifically those in which various secondary imperfectivizing suffixes are replaced by the default suffix -ov-. This adjustment results in deverbal nominalizations with bases not attested in actual verbal forms. The adjustment of the secondary imperfectivizer, while consistently resulting in the introduction of -ov-, applies irregularly, i.e. to a subset of lec-nominalizations. Furthermore, with some bases, both the adjusted and unadjusted versions are possible, and in an even smaller subset of cases there is also a third form, which encompasses elements of both versions. In order to understand the optional adjustment of the secondary imperfectivizer, we examine the broader role of aspect and aspect morphology in lec-nominalizations. Based on quantitative data and the available candidates for aspectual pairs of lec-nominalizations, we observe that aspect is not actively included in the interpretation of lec-nominalizations and that apparent aspectual pairs show divergent lexicalizations or total synonymy. We argue that the optional loss of distinction between different secondary imperfectivizers is due to the fact that the relevant morpheme remains on the surface but does not get interpreted. This in turn leads to a loss of allomorphic conditioning, which results in the emergence of the default exponence.