Being verbal is distinct from being (syntactically) eventive: evidence from nominals

Abstract Much of the debate in the morphosyntactic literature has been concerned with the syntax of language formations known as complex event nominals (CENs), a term coined by Grimshaw (1990. Argument structure . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). The attention of language researchers has so far been almost exclusively focused on CENs based on lexical verbs (e.g. destruction , formation , demolition ). This paper shows that CENs can be derived not only from verbal roots (i.e. roots that can be categorized as verbs) but also from bound stems (e.g. nutrition , partition , requisition ). The aim of the study is to determine what the existence of such nominals means for the morphosyntactic theory in light of what is already known about the syntax of CENs. The research specifically focuses on the question of whether it is justifiable to refer to event nominals as ‘deverbal’, that is, as constructs whose internal structure projects the cyclic vP layer. The paper argues that such a verbal layer is absent in the structure of CENs (whose structure nevertheless contains a head labelled EventP that introduces event implications) and included only the representation of - ing gerunds.