On the interpretation of nominals: Towards a result-oriented verb classification

The present paper explores the interpretation of deverbal nominalizations obtained from transitive verbs by means of those suffixes conventionally named in the literature as 'transpositional'. It is traditionally acknowledged that these nominals are ambiguous between a process/event interpretation and a result one. In the former case the nominalizing suffix simply changes the category of the verb without affecting its semantics; in the latter case the nominal is assumed to acquire a specific, highly idiosyncratic or unpredictable meaning, loosing its connection to verb semantics. The leading hypothesis of the present analysis is that it is possible to predict whether a verb can give rise to a result nominal on the basis of its semantics. On a more general line, we point out that the overall interpretations nominals can display are strongly determined by the semantics of the verbs which nominalizing suffixes are attached to.