Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English

Language Sciences xxx (2018) 1–12

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Language Sciences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/langsci

Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and Englishq Ulrike Demske Universität Potsdam, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Available online xxx

The point of departure of this paper is the claim by Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle (this issue) that the suffix -ing has no aspectual meaning in English gerunds. Rather, the interpretation of nominal and verbal gerunds depends, so they argue, on situation or viewpoint aspect, a claim that contradicts the wide-spread view that the aspectual meaning of English gerunds is brought about by the nominalizing suffix. The present paper addresses the issue from a comparative perspective, focusing on German ung-nominals: while they share aspectual features with their English counterparts, empirical evidence from productivity, distribution, and argument linking shows (i) that the derivational suffix -ung imposes aspectual restrictions on possible verb bases, and (ii) that with respect to argument linking, the deverbal nominal favors the state component of a complex event predicate over its process component. From the historical record of German, we learn that these aspectual restrictions do not hold for ung-nominals in earlier periods of German. With the rise of aspectual restrictions, the nominalization pattern turns more nominal resulting in a position further towards the nominal end of the deverbalization continuum. It appears, then, that it is only in the historical pariods of German that ung-nominals pattern with English nominals as regards their aspectual features. Currently, German ungnominals are more noun-like than nominal (and verbal) gerunds in English. Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Aspectual properties of deverbal nominals have been widely discussed from at least two perspectives: (i) the productivity of the nominalization patterns in question, and (ii) the inheritance of argument structure. With regard to the productivity of nominalization processes, it has been pointed out that semantic restrictions on verbal classes exist for nominal gerunds in English (Lees, 1968 [1960]; Marchand, 1969) and for ung-nominalizations in German (Esau, 1973; Ehrich, 1977). These restrictions are aspectual in nature, in that neither type of deverbal noun allows stative verbs as its base morpheme, thus rendering derivations like knowing-of and Wissung ungrammatical. For any deverbal noun, the question arises which aspectual properties of the verbal base are mapped onto the derived nominal and if and how these properties are affected by the derivational suffix. It is widely accepted that with derivational suffixes such as -age, -ance, and -ment in English, the Aktionsart of the underlying verb is inherited by the deverbal noun (Brinton, 1995), while suffixes like German -ung or Dutch and English -ing function as aspectual markers in their own right (Bartsch, 1985; Ehrich, 1991; Brinton, 1995): With respect to q For valuable comments and suggestions, I would like to thank two anonymous referees as well as the editors of this volume, in particular Hubert Cuyckens. E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006 0388-0001/Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Demske, U., Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English, Language Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006

2

U. Demske / Language Sciences xxx (2018) 1–12

German, Ehrich (1991) contrasts nominalized infinitives and ung-nominals, demonstrating that the former pattern conveys an imperfective reading and the latter a perfective reading, irrespective of the aspectual properties of the verb. Consequently, situations that comprise a temporal boundary require ung-nominalizations but disallow nominalized infinitives, as is shown by Ehrich for the atelic verb belagern ‘besiege’ and the telic verb räumen ‘evict’, cf. (1) vs. (2). This also holds for Dutch.1 (1)

a. Die Belagerung der Stadt ist beendet worden. b. *Das Belagern der Stadt ist beendet worden. ‘The siege of the city has been lifted.’

(2)

a. Die Räumung des Hauses ist abgeschlossen. b. *Das Räumen des Hauses ist abgeschlossen. ‘The eviction from the house is finished.’

With regard to English, Brinton (1995, 1998) states that the suffix -ing is an imperfectivizing marker, affecting the Aktionsart of the verb and allowing nominalizations of telic and atelic verbs alike to appear in descriptions of situations lacking a temporal boundary. Apart from activity verbs like write, even an achievement verb like melt may appear as an argument of an imperfective predicate, with the gerund emphasizing the process leading up to the endpoint. As regards semelfactives like hammer, the use of the gerund is supposed to have an iterative effect. All examples are taken from Brinton (1995, p.33). (3)

a. My writing is progressing slowly. b. The melting of the snow is contributing to flooding. c. I heard hammering for a long time last night.

Evidence that the English gerund and the nominalized infinitive in German have an imperfective meaning comes from the fact that they pattern with mass nouns, both displaying a cumulative meaning: just as any part of a given amount of water is water, any part of a writing process is of the same nature as the whole writing process. In contrast, nominalizations with a perfective meaning like ung-nominals in German pattern with count nouns, both displaying holistic reference (Mourelatos, 1978; Ehrich, 1991; Brinton, 1995). Heyvaert et al. (this issue), however, challenge the view that the ing-suffix is an aspectual marker in Present-day English. They argue that the aspectual meaning of the deverbal noun is provided by the Aktionsart of the verb conspiring with the context, stressing at the same time the need to distinguish between aspectual properties of nominal and verbal gerunds. Only then, they claim, is it possible to gain a deeper understanding of the categorial shifts relating verbs, nominals, and verbal gerunds. In the following section, I will present their analysis in greater detail. Closely related to the question of aspectual import of the verb is the issue of the inheritance of argument structure. According to Grimshaw (1990), two kinds of event nominals have to be distinguished, depending on their potential to take arguments: socalled complex event nominals preserve the argument structure of the verbal base, while simple event nominals do not. In addition, only the former kind of event nominal licenses aspectual modifiers such as careful and frequent, cf. (4a) vs. (4b):2 (4)

a. The cook’s careful simmering of the chicken made a good broth. b. *The frequent exam happened in the fall. (examples taken from Grimshaw, 2011, pp. 1301–1302)

As regards complex event nominals in Present-day German, Ehrich & Rapp (2000) observe that the deverbal nominal focuses on the result state component of the complex event, whereas the verbal base highlights the process leading up to the culmination point. Accordingly, as exemplified in (5a), complements of complex event nominals can only be interpreted as objects, with a subject interpretation not being available. The opposite holds for the nominalized infinitive in German and the nominal gerund in English: as argued by Alexiadou et al. (2013), these types of nominalization pattern focus on the process component of the complex event denoted by the accomplishment verb and thus lack the result state component required for licensing non-agentive external arguments, as in (5b). (5)

a.

Die Vernichtung der Akte/*des Betrügers erfolgte vorsorglich. ‘The destruction of the file/of the swindler was carried out as a precaution.’ (example from Ehrich and Rapp, 2000, p. 285; translation mine) b. The justifying of the evacuation by the mayor/*by the approaching hurricane (example from Alexiadou et al., 2013, p. 80)

Accounting for differences in argument structure between base verbs and deverbal nominalizations in terms of aspectual differences makes a strong case for the aspectual meaning of markers of nominalization devices, as claimed by Ehrich (1991) for German and Brinton (1995) for English.

1

(i) (ii) 2

Bartsch (1985) gives the following examples of the telic verb oplossen ‘solve’: De oplossing van het probleem werd bereikt. ‘The solution of the problem was achieved.’ *Het oplossen van het probleem werd bereikt. ‘Solving the problem was achieved.’ Note, however, that the aspectual modifier is licensed as soon as simple event nouns occur in the plural.

Please cite this article in press as: Demske, U., Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English, Language Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006

U. Demske / Language Sciences xxx (2018) 1–12

3

In the current paper, I will consider the aspectual properties of ung-nominals from a diachronic perspective, resuming earlier work (Demske, 2000, 2002). In contrast to Present-day German, no aspectual restrictions affect either the productivity or the inheritance of argument structure in earlier stages of German. To account for the rise of these restrictions, I argue that ung-nominals undergo a categorial shift from Early New High German to Present-day German: while the deverbal nominals initially share their aspectual properties with their verbal bases, the word formation pattern acquires more noun-like properties over time. On a continuum of deverbalization, ung-nominals thus move further towards the nominal end diachronically. Even if Fonteyn (2016) observes for nominal gerunds in the history of English that they increasingly acquired nominal properties, they are still considerably less nominal than German ungnominals. My observations in this response to the paper by Heyvaert et al. (this issue) are based on two corpus studies: for Presentday German, 280 types of ung-nominals were extracted from Das Deutsche Referenzkorpus (Institut für Deutsche Sprache 2015); for Early New High German, 250 types of ung-nominals were extracted from three newspapers from the 17th and late 16th century. 2. Aspectual features of nominal and verbal gerunds in present-day English Heyvaert et al. (this issue) examine categorial differences between nominal and verbal gerunds in Present-day English, focusing on their aspectual properties. The morphosyntactic differences between the two types of gerunds are well known: nominal gerunds exihibit internal noun phrase syntax, including determiners, adjectival modifiers, and negation by means of no; arguments are realized by a prepositional phrase introduced by of.3 (6)

a. In the aftermath of Mr Horton’s own departure ruthless slashing of the payroll continues. b. Third World Countries are especially worried about the dumping of nuclear waste.

Verbal gerunds, on the other hand, display clause-like properties internally, while sharing their distribution with noun phrases. They combine with adverbial modifiers and require not as a negation. Arguments of verbal gerunds are realized as bare nominal complements. (7)

a. Brown’s deftly painting his daughter is a delight to watch. (Quirk et al., 1985, p. 1291) b. (...) electoral democracy can only survive by not tackling major social injustices.

In view of the fact that verbal gerunds developed out of nominal gerunds in the course of Modern English, the authors expect considerable overlap regarding their morphosyntactic as well as their semantic properties. While the formal development of verbal gerunds has so far received a lot of attention (Wik, 1973; Nehls, 1988; Zehentner, 2014, to name just a few examples), semantic properties of verbal gerunds as opposed to their nominal counterparts are less well understood. Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle follow Fonteyn (2016), who distinguishes two stages in the development of verbal gerunds: (i) a hybrid stage lasting from Middle English to Early Modern English (1500–1700), characterized by a large overlap of syntactic and semantic properties of verbal and nominal gerunds, and (ii) a divergence stage, starting in Late Modern English (1700 onwards), where both types of gerunds gradually become semantically distinct, with the verbal gerund acquiring more verbal and the nominal gerund acquiring more nominal features. Since there is still some overlap in Present-day English, Heyvaert et al. address the question of how much both types of gerunds are still alike, focusing on their aspectual features. To this effect, they present the results of a quantitative analysis based on 500 nominal and 500 verbal gerunds taken from the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English.4 Apart from supplying a substantial amount of new data, the authors also intend to contribute to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms behind the categorial shifts in the formation of nominal and verbal gerunds. To describe the aspectual properties of nominal and verbal gerunds in Present-day English, Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle distinguish two aspectual dimensions, Aktionsart or situation aspect and grammatical or viewpoint aspect, grounded in work by Vendler (1957) as well as Smith (1997) and Declerck (2006).5> In particular, they propose five situation types (adding the semantic class of semelfactives to Vendler’s four classes), each of which can be characterized in terms of a combination of the ontological features
static,
durative,
telic, and
transition.6 Table 1, taken from Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle, provides an overview of the classification scheme employed in their study.

3

Unless otherwise noted, the examples in this section are taken from Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle. The authors note that at most three tokens per verb type went into the corpus to avoid that highly productive nominalizations distort the overall picture. 5 Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle’s classification thus largely corresponds to the distinction between Aktionsart and aspect frequently found in the literature. 6 Ehrich’s (1991) classification is based exclusively on the two features
telic and
durative, thus yielding the four classes of [þdurative, þtelic], [þdurative, telic], [durative, þtelic] and [durative, telic]. 4

Please cite this article in press as: Demske, U., Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English, Language Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006

4

U. Demske / Language Sciences xxx (2018) 1–12 Table 1 Situation aspect (Heyvaert et al., this issue). states activities accomplishments achievements semelfactives

[þstatic] [static] [static] [static] [-static]

[þdurative] [þdurative] [þdurative] [durative] [durative]

[telic] [telic] [þtelic] not applicable not applicable

not applicable not applicable not applicable [þtransition] [transition]

As is well attested in the literature, situation types rely not only on the aspectual contribution provided by the verb, but include also verbal complements such as subject, objects, and adverbials. The examples under (8) illustrate individual situation types with the temporal information coming either from the verb or jointly from the verb and its complements. In (8b), for instance, the situation presented by the achievement verb dump is interpreted as an activity because the mass noun complement supplies the feature [þdurative], referring to repeated dumping events. In a parallel fashion, the situation presented by the activity verb walk in (8c) has to be analyzed as an accomplishment because of the adverbial complement providing an inherent endpoint. The feature [
transition] is used to discriminate between the achievement in (8d) and the semelfactive in (8e).7 (8)

a. b. c. d. e.

(.) holding a position or office which is subject, either directly or indirectly, to popular election. Third World countries are especially worried about the dumping of nuclear waste. One of the simplest things to do is to work off some of the tension by walking to the interview if at all possible. Both sides agreed to confine all their forces to camp within one week of the signing of the agreement. There followed the flashing of their torchlights and muttered excuses and a voice saying with exaggerated courtesy (.).

While situation aspect may thus be concerned with the potential endpoint of a situation, the second dimension of ‘viewpoint aspect’ deals with the actual realization of a situation or how the internal temporal structure of a situation is construed by the speaker. Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle distinguish three types of viewpoint aspect, namely whether a particular situation is represented as (i) temporally (un)bounded, (ii) iterative, repetitive, or habitual, and (iii) whether there is reference to the situation’s actualization. My focus here will be on the first type, i.e. the issue of actual temporal boundaries (Depraetere, 1995).8 The difference between potential and actual endpoints of a situation is illustrated by the examples in (9). In (9a), the activity lobbying lacks an inherent endpoint, but in view of the fact that the goal of the activity has been reached, the situation includes an actual boundary. The situation described in (9b), on the other hand, is represented as unbounded, in spite of prepare being an accomplishment verb, because the linguistic context makes clear that the inherent endpoint has not yet been reached. In addition, Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle emphasize that many examples in their corpus have contexts which do not allow them to decide on the boundedness of a particular situation (¼ neutral). (9)

a. This reaffirmation of Hanoi’s scheme was given despite the lobbying of the Thai Foreign Minister, Sitthi Sawtsila. b. In preparing a thesis at the master’s or the doctorate level, the student is clearly engaged in research.

The analysis of nominal and verbal gerunds with respect to situation and viewpoint aspect challenges previous assumptions on the imperfective meaning of -ing. According to Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle, empirical evidence suggests that it is not the suffix that determines the aspectual interpretation of gerunds, but the verb base, its arguments, and the linguistic environment. Contrary to common belief, the results of their study show that gerunds with an accomplishment verb as verbal source are not restricted to imperfective interpretations, neither are gerunds derived from achievements and semelfactives restricted to durative situations implying iterativity; see (10a) and (10b). (10)

a. Even if you don’t like to fiddle with curlers and tongs you can show off your cut to best advantage by adding more volume and body to your hair. b. Areas around Ramallah and el-Bireh had been under curfew since the killing of a settler at the beginning of the intifada.

Further examples providing evidence against the suffix -ing functioning as an aspectual marker are given by Grimshaw (2011: 1304). The situation in (11), for instance, is presented as bounded by the use of the temporal modifier in three days, hence prohibiting an interpretation in terms of imperfectivity as suggested by the embedding predicate to witness. (11)

I’ve never witnessed the writing of a paper in only three days.

(Grimshaw, 2011, p. 1304)

The examples in (10) and (11) show that, whenever there are changes with respect to the situation type of the verb, this change is due either to the nominal argument of the gerund or to the clausal context rather than the derivational suffix. The

7 According to Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle, the ontological feature [
telic] does not apply to punctual events, i.e. achievements and semelfactives, because punctual events presuppose the existence of an inherent endpoint. 8 As a matter of fact, I do not see why the repetition of a situation is to be a type of viewpoint aspect. Whether a situation is iterative or repetitive depends on the semantic class of the verb (semelfactive verbs like German hüsteln ‘cough slightly’ and streicheln ‘caress’ or English spit and sneeze) or on the DP complement including a mass or a plural noun (the dumping of nuclear waste, the shooting of peaceful demonstrators). It belongs hence to the aspectual category of Aktionsart or situation aspect.

Please cite this article in press as: Demske, U., Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English, Language Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006

U. Demske / Language Sciences xxx (2018) 1–12

5

quantitative analysis by Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle shows that the former factor occurs most frequently (in particular with nominal gerunds), while the latter occurs only infrequently. This is especially striking in the case of nominal gerunds, where the authors observe that the feature [þdurative] is often provided by the nominal argument of the deverbal noun, resulting in what they call “durative hypersituations”, as suggested by Declerck (2006). In this case, either a mass noun or a plural count noun turns an achievement or a semelfactive verb into an activity, creating a situation with a number of repeated subsituations (see example (8b) above). In contrast to activity readings provided by the verb itself, activity readings originating in the VP are heterogenous in nature. Two of the few examples where the clausal context highlights the process component of a complex event are given below in (12a–b). Most contexts, however, are neutral as regards the explicit marking of viewpoint aspect, i.e. they lack a marker of ongoingness or completeness. In (12c), for instance, there is no way to decide whether the restructuring is still going on or has already reached the inherent endpoint. (12)

a. Just when you think you’ve got all the tools you need, you realise that solving your problem requires something more. b. Jack nodded briefly and returned to his relentless checking of the boy’s condition. c. This Update also includes an article on the restructuring of the SCOTVEC verification system.

Regarding categorial differences between nominal and verbal gerunds, Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle note that in addition to their shared preference for selecting activity verbs, nominal gerunds tend to generalize over situations while verbal gerunds rather refer to individual situations. As nominal gerunds often represent heterogenous situations and are marked more often for temporal bounding, they pattern with count nouns, as opposed to verbal gerunds which refer to homogenous situations just as mass nouns do. Since there is nevertheless still considerable overlap in function, they can often be used interchangeably. 3. Ung-nominals in German: diachronic issues Although German ung-nominals may denote different sorts of entities, the focus of this paper is on ung-nominals referring to eventualities.9 I will thus disregard entities without an internal temporal structure such as person (Bedienung ‘waiter’), instrument (Lenkung ‘steering’), result object (Sammlung ‘collection’), and place (Mündung ‘mouth’). My main concern is the aspectual shift of the nominalization pattern, with the feature [þtelic] playing a crucial role. In contrast to Heyvaert; Maekelberghe & Buyle, I assume that this feature also applies to punctual events, i.e. achievements and semelfactives, which are treated as one single class in the remainder of the paper. 3.1. Aspectual shift and nominal status A distinction is made in Ehrich (1991) between perfective ung-nominals and imperfective nominalized infinitives in Present-day German. On the assumption that it is the Aktionsart of the base verb that determines the perfective reading of ung-nominals (Paul, 1920: 74), telic verbs can be expected to outnumber atelic verbs as possible bases for the nominalization pattern in question. A small corpus study based on 323 ung- nominals drawn from the DeReKo (2015)10 shows that this expectation is in fact borne out: deverbal nominals based on accomplishments (13a) and punctual events (13b) take up the larger share. (13)

a. Die Hochschulen entscheiden selbst und nach einer Prüfung des Einzelfalls, ob der Student oder die Studentin exmatrikuliert wird. (STZ00/JAN.00037) ‘The universities decide on their own and after looking into individual cases, whether the student will be taken off the university register.’ b. Wer in den kommenden Jahren im Land Professor wird, kann allerdings nicht mehr mit einer Ernennung auf Lebenszeit rechnen. (STZ00/JAN.00037) ‘Those who will become professor in this country within the next few years cannot count on an appointment for life.’

In particular, 74% of all ung-nominals (¼ 239 tokens) are derived from verbs that include an inherent endpoint, thus lending further support to the view that -ung has a perfective meaning which combines most naturally with telic verbs. Conversely, ung-nominals in Present-day German expressing a(n) (imperfective) process are clearly marked, as already emphasized by Ehrich and Rapp (2000).11 The strong bias towards perfective readings of the ung-nominalization pattern is also supported by the fact that prefix verbs are particularly frequent in the corpus. A good case in point are nominalizations of deadjectival verbs

9

Eventualities comprise all sorts of entities with an internal temporal structure. The corpus includes 323 tokens and 280 types of ung-nominals extracted from three current newspapers, ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’, ‘Stuttgarter Zeitung’ und ‘Die Zeit’, part of the DeReKo (2015). All instances denote eventualities with each type of ung-nominal being represented only once in each subcorpus. Synthetic compounds such as Milliardennachzahlung ‘billions back payment’ or Preisangleichung ‘price adaption’ have all been excluded from the corpus to avoid multiple instances of individual types of ung-nominals. 11 Roßdeutscher and Kamp (2010) is a comprehensive study of syntactic and semantic constraints of ung-nominals in Present-day German. 10

Please cite this article in press as: Demske, U., Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English, Language Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006

6

U. Demske / Language Sciences xxx (2018) 1–12

including the prefix er-, such as Erblindung ‘loss of sight’, Erschlaffung ‘relaxation’, Erhöhung ‘increase’, Erstarkung ‘gaining strength’. Bei leichtem Bluthochdruck findet man diastolische Blutdruckwerte, wie sie bei der Erschlaffung des Herzens zwischen zwei Kontraktionen gemessen werden. ‘Diastolic blood pressure readings are found with slightly high blood pressure. They can be measured between two contractions during the relaxation of the heart.’

(14)

(U92/JAN.00034)

Similarly, newly coined instances of the nominalization pattern are very often based on (potential) denominal or deadjectival verbs. Typical verbalization patterns include the prefix ver- (verbanklichen >> Verbanklichung ‘make something more suitable to banks’; verbequemlichen >> Verbequemlichung ‘make something more comfortable’) and the Latinate suffix -ier/isier- (miniaturisieren >> Miniaturisierung ‘miniaturize’). Evidence for this phenomenon can be gained by using Wortwarte, a tool that automatically extracts neologisms from online media (www.wortwarte.de).12 (15)

a. Allzu realitätsfern ist die möbelhafte Verdisneyfizierung eines utopischen Schlaraffenlandes nicht. (Wortwarte, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 30 December 2016) ‘The disneyfication of an utopian Cockaigne by means of new furniture designs is not far away.’ b. Miami ist bald überall. Der Brasilianer Frederico Benevides zeigt in ‘Viventes’, einer Art ‘Tableau vivant’, eine bestimmte Bevölkerungsschicht, die mit der Miamisierung der brasilianischen Großstadt Fortaleza langsam verschwindet. (Wortwarte, Der Spiegel, 3 February 2015) ‘Miami is everywhere. In ‘Viventes’, a kind of ‘tableau vivant’, the Brazilian Frederico Benevides shows a particular social class which is slowly disappearing as a result of the miamization of the Brazilian city Fortaleza.’

Then again, the unavailability of (imperfective) nominals such as *Stehung ‘standing’ or *Hüstelung ‘coughing slightly’ in German can be attributed – as is well documented in the literature – to semantic restrictions on the formation of ungnominals from base verbs characterized as [þstatic] and [þiterative] (see Bartsch, 1985; Ehrich, 1977; Esau, 1973). Recall that nominal gerunds in English do not allow for stative verbs as a derivational base either (Lees, 1968 [1960], p. 66).13 Nominalized infinitives in German and verbal gerunds in English, on the other hand, easily allow for base verbs from all situation types, including stative verbs (aufrechtes Stehen ‘standing upright’, knowing the way). Although the results presented above suggest that the suffix -ung is an aspectual marker, we also find contradicting empirical evidence along the lines of Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle. As observed for gerundive nominals in English (cf. the previous section), ung-nominals in German may preserve situation aspect of the verb. Not only verbs with an inherent endpoint, but also nominalizations of activity verbs maintain their aspectual properties, resulting in process nominals (16). (16)

Anschließend empfiehlt sich eine Besichtigung des Ortes, der noch mehr zu bieten hat. ‘Afterwards, we recommend a visit of the site, because it has much more to offer.’

(U92/FEB.02641)

Moreover, ung-nominals based on accomplishment verbs may receive a variety of readings, depending on the context: apart from the object reading in (17a), they may denote processes, events, and result states (cf. Ehrich and Rapp 2000), as is illustrated for the ambiguous deverbal nominal Beschriftung ‘labeling’. The process reading in (17b) is triggered by the preposition bei ‘during’ and the temporal adverb dauernd ‘constant’, while the preposition nach ‘after’ prompts the event reading in (17c). The result state reading in (17d) is due to the predicate überfällig ‘overdue’. If -ung were a perfective marker, we would not expect the process reading in (17b) to be available. (17)

a.

Die Beschriftung ist wieder vom Reagenzglas verschwunden. ‘The label has disappeared from the test tube again.’ b. Fred ist bei der Beschriftung der Reagenzgläser dauernd gestört worden. ‘Fred has been constantly disturbed during the labeling of the test tubes.’ c. Nach der Beschriftung der Reagenzgläser ist Fred in den Hörsaal gegangen. ‘After labeling the test tubes, Fred went to the lecture hall.’ d. Die Beschriftung der Reagenzgläser war lange überfällig. ‘The labeling of the test tubes was overdue for a long time.’

The examples in (17b–d) are instances for what Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle call viewpoint aspect, i.e. how the speaker construes the internal temporal structure of the situation. Depending on the preposition, the situation is described as

12 Though Wortwarte is an important data source when looking for current trends in word formation, it sometimes misses earlier attestations of words, such as Verbequemlichung ‘making something more comfortable’, which is attested as a neologism in 2008. In fact, the word is already used in a publication of 1890 (Johannes Scherr: Germania. Zwei Jahrtausende deutsche Kulturgeschichte. Leipzig, S. 148): Die Verbequemlichung und Verschönerung der Städte ging übrigens nur langsam vor sich. ‘Making cities more comfortable and their improvement went on only slowly, by the way.’ 13 Though there exceptions to this generalization in German as in English, this general tendency seems to hold.

Please cite this article in press as: Demske, U., Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English, Language Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006

U. Demske / Language Sciences xxx (2018) 1–12

7

unbounded in (17b) and bounded in (17c). Apart from temporal prepositions (Ehrich and Rapp 2002), predicates selecting deverbal nominals – e.g. fortfahren ‘continue’, dauern ‘last’ or perception verbs such as beobachten ‘watch’, hören ‘hear’ – are of particular significance as aspectualizers (Vendler, 1967). Likewise, event-related modifiers such as allmählich ‘gradual’, häufig ‘frequent’, dauernd ‘constant’, or durational in- and seit-PPs (Grimshaw, 1990) trigger interpretations in terms of [
bounded]. Aspectual properties of ung-nominals in Present-day German hence suggest that the derivational suffix has no aspectual meaning, just like the corresponding suffix -ing in English. Nevertheless, as discussed above, the pattern is not fully productive, but semantically restricted in certain ways, pointing to at least some aspectual import of the suffix. Turning to ung-nominals in earlier stages of German, we find that all situation types in our 17th-century corpus are frequently attested as verbal sources for ung-nominals. In addition, the relationship between the meaning of the verbal base and the meaning of the derived nominal is productive, since aspectual properties are preserved, as the following examples illustrate. The deverbal nominal beschiessung ‘shooting’ inherits its aspectual features from its [þactivity] verbal base, as the nominal beschützung ‘defending’ inherits the aspectual features from its [þstate] verbal base. The aspectual features [static], [þdurative] and [þtelic] of the accomplishment verb vereisen ‘freeze’ are mapped to the event nominal Beeyssung ‘freezing’; in a similar fashion, the ung-nominal derived from the achievement verb auswerfen ‘set something off’ maintains the Aktionsart as well. (18)

a. Alldar vernimbt man/ daß der GroßVezier nach beschehener General Ubersehung seiner Völcker bey beschiessung deß Forts St. Demetrio nicht geblieben/ sondern mit gantzer Macht unter Candia fortgerückt/ (PZ 96.11) ‘It is heard that the great vizier after having completed a general inspection of his peoples was not satisfied with firing at Fort St. Demetrio, but moved the troops forward.’ b. So hat zu dessen beschützung der Duca Savelli als ErbCustos und Mareschal deß Conclave viel Soldaten herbey thun kommen/ (PZ 97.6) ‘In order to protect him, the Duke Savelli, curator and marshall of the conclave, summoned many soldiers to this place.’ c. Weilen durch den starcken ahnhaltenden Frost die Schiffahrt etliche Tage lang sehr verhindert worden/ und ein gäntzliche Beeyssung zu vermuthen ist/ als wird in etlichen Monathen aus der See wenig zu vernehmen seyn/ (PZ 7.22) ‘As the sailing has been interrupted for several days due to severe and continuing frost and as a complete freezing over of the sea is to be expected, there will not be a lot of news from the sea within the next months.’ d. Das zu Schwelingen probirte newerfundene Fewerwerck ist wohl abgangen/ unter welchen eins mit Außwerffung vieler Kugeln und Granaten wunderbahren Effect gezeigt/ (PZ 48.43) ‘The fireworks that were created and tested in Schwelingen did work and had wonderful effects like the throwing of many balls and grenates.’

As in Present-day German and English, the particular reading of complex event nominals in the historical corpus under investigation is governed by the linguistic environment. Situations are represented as unbounded when ung-nominals appear as complements of predicates such as continuiren ‘continue’, im Werk sein ‘be doing’, begriffen sein ‘be doing’, verharren ‘persist’, perception verbs such as beobachten ‘watch’, or temporal prepositions such as in ‘during’. The examples in (19) illustrate how the context triggers a process reading, even though the base verbs have the temporal structure of an achievement (19a) or an accomplishment (19b). (19)

a. Mit Abdanckung des Kriegsvolcks/ wird noch continuirt/ ‘The dismissal of the troops will continue.’ b. Gleich jetzt in zumachung der Brieff wird für gewiß angezeigt/ Nach deme beyderseits Gesanten diesen Vor- vnd Nachmittag beysammen gewest/ sey der Anstandt in publico beschlossen worden/ ‘Right now, while I am closing this letter, it is announced that the armistice has been decided in public, after the envoys of both parties met this morning and this afternoon.’

(A 283.6)

(A 71.24)

Situations are construed as bounded when temporal prepositions such as nach ‘after’, instrumental prepositions such as mit ‘through’, or predicates providing an endpoint like vollenden ‘finish’ are used. Vollenden also imposes a bounded reading when the internal temporal structure of the verb does not include an inherent endpoint as with the activity verb besichtigen ‘visit’ in (20b). (20)

a. da der Gesand mit gutem willen/ nach empfahung der Key: Resolution vnd Present/ von hinnen nicht reysen wolte/ so wolle er demselben Küchen vnd Keller zuschliessen/ (A 312.30) ‘As the envoy did not want to go away with good will, after receiving the imperial resolution and present, he wanted to close kitchen and cellar for him.’ b. der Duca del Sesto hat die Besichtigung der Plätzen jetzo vollendet/ in etlichen die Besatzungen verändert/ in andern mit newen Völckern vermehret (PZ 6.7) ‘The Duc del Sesto has finished the inspection of the sites now, has changed the troops in some and has increased the garrison with new troops in others.’

In yet another respect, ung-nominals in Early New High German differ from those in Present-day German. They are not subject to semantic restrictions, as can be seen from the historical corpus data, where we find a number of ung-nominals that are no longer available nowadays (Gießung ‘casting’, Leutung ‘chiming’, Erdroßlung ‘strangling’, and Vbergebung ‘handing over’). Although ung-nominals constitute a very productive nominalization pattern in Present-day German, they seem to have been even more productive in earlier stages, in that the ung-nominals listed above belong either to the class of activity verbs or to the class of punctual events (i.e. achievements and semelfactives). Further evidence for emerging semantic restrictions

Please cite this article in press as: Demske, U., Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English, Language Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006

8

U. Demske / Language Sciences xxx (2018) 1–12

on base verbs comes from a considerable number of atelic ung-nominals that can still be attested in a Middle High German dictionary but which have been replaced by nominalized infinitives in Present-day German (Lexer, 1999). A selection is presented in (21). Note that while the ung-nominalizations are not grammatical any more, all verb bases are currently still in use. (21)

begerunge – Begehren ‘desire’ goukelunge – Gaukeln ‘making believe’ hoerunge – Hören ‘listening’ lernunge – Lernen ‘learning’ jâmerunge – Jammern ‘lamenting’ lîdunge – Leiden ‘suffering’

smeichunge – Schmeicheln ‘flattering’ streckunge – Strecken ‘stretching’ suochunge – Suchen ‘searching’ studierunge – Studieren ‘studying’ sûsunge – Sausen ‘dashing’ verdienunge – Verdienen ‘earning’

Evidently, the productivity of ung-nominals is less restricted in older stages of German. A small survey of 250 ungnominals in a newspaper corpus of the 17th century14 shows furthermore that the ratio of telic and atelic nominalizations differs from their distribution in the newspaper corpus in Present-day German. The historical record comprises a much larger number of ung-nominals with an atelic reading than in Present-day German (56% or 139 ung-nominals as opposed to 26% or 84 ung-nominals). The diachronic data suggest that ung-nominalizations have undergone an aspectual shift from Early New High German to Present-day German. While the nominalizing suffix does not impose any restrictions on the verbal source in earlier varieties of German, emerging semantic restrictions suggest that -ung has acquired perfective meaning. In my view, this aspectual shift has been brought about by a change in the lexical entry of the derivational suffix: while -ung selects verbs of all semantic classes in Middle High German and Early New High German, it takes only verbs with the feature [þtelic] in Present-day German.15 The diachronic emergence of restrictions on the subcategorization of suffixes is an established morphological change (cf. the suffix -heit acquiring a prosodic constraint during its historical development).16 Currently attested ungnominalizations with a process reading are lexicalized instances of the once more productive word order pattern. Relics of process nominalizations, stored in the mental lexicon, are often found in Present-day German with the context supporting the process reading, either by a governing preposition like unter ‘with’ (22a) or an adjectival modifier as weiter ‘further’ (22b); see also example (16). (22)

a. Nach den Wahlen aber stemmte er sich wochenlang gegen eine kirchennahe konservative Regierungskoalition unter Führung des Zentrumspolitikers Jan Olszewski. ‘After the elections, however, he was fighting for weeks against a church-related, conservative governing coalition, led by Jan Olszewski, a politician of the Zentrum Party.’ b. Die weitere Bewirtschaftung der Streuobstwiesen sei sogar ausdrückliches Ziel. ‘The further cultivation of the traditional fruit orchards would even be an explicit goal.’

(U92/JAN.00036)

(STZ00/JAN.00040)

The aspectual shift of the nominalization pattern in German indicates that ung-nominals – as long as they are not lexicalized – become increasingly nominal in their historical development. Recall that nominalizations with a perfective meaning pattern with count nouns, since both share referential properties: just like a component of a chair is not the whole chair, a component of the event of excavating a mummy is not the excavation event as a whole, but refers only to part of it (see Ehrich, 1991 and Section 1 for further references). Verbs including a change of state component in their lexico-semantic structure are preferred to verbs lacking such a meaning component. That ung-nominals were more verb-like in Early New High German can also be shown with respect to negation: instead of the negative determiner kein ‘no’, the sentential adverb nicht ‘not’ is attested in some instances of ung-nominals (23a). Note that ung-nominals otherwise behave like nouns, as indicated by the use of the determiner and the realization of arguments as either genitive phrases or PPs. In addition, we can observe adverbs like oft ‘often’ modifying the deverbal nominal (23b). (23)

a. Gedachte Fürsten haben wider des Keysers Comissarij zu Disteldorff angeschlagenes Patent ein anders anhefften lassen/ sich der nicht erscheinug entschüldigt/ ‘The aforementioned princes had put up another recruitment poster against the emperor’s plenipotentiaries at Düsseldorf and have apologized for their non-appearance.’ b. vnd daß J. M. auff seine offt Erinnerung der Parteyen Sachen nicht/ oder je gar langsam vnterschrieben/ ‘(...) ’and upon reminding him frequently of the party’s affairs, His Majesty either did not or did reluctantly sign (...)’

(A 181.3)

(A 310.7)

Additional support for the assumption that ung-nominals are more verb-like in Early New High German comes from their distribution. As the historical record shows, ung-nominals productively share their distribution with nominalized infinitives

14 The corpus consists of 250 types of ung-nominals taken from three newspapers from the 17th and late 16th century. As with the corpus of Present-day German, all synthetic compounds were removed from the corpus, as were multiple instances of one lexeme. 15 This change, I suppose, occurs independently of earlier changes affecting the word formation pattern: In Old High German, morphological restrictions govern the nominalization process, i.e. -ung preferably selects verbs from the weak inflection class. Only in Middle High German, ung-nominals become more frequent; see Demske (1999) for further details. 16 The nominalizing suffix -heit selects adjectives to form nouns. The historical record shows that it selects adjectives irrespective from prosodic properties in Early New High German, it no longer selects adjectives ending on an unstressed syllable in Present-day German. In these cases, -keit has to be used (Wilmanns, 1899, p. 386): bitterheit >> Bitterkeit ‘bitterness’, dancberheyt >> Dankbarkeit ‘thankfulness’, eitelheit >> Eitelkeit ‘vanity’.

Please cite this article in press as: Demske, U., Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English, Language Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006

U. Demske / Language Sciences xxx (2018) 1–12

9

in earlier stages of German. One example is coordinated structures where both nominalization patterns can be combined due to their identical aspectual features (24). Another context is provided by mit-PPs, with the preposition stressing the process reading as illustrated in (25). The PPs can be replaced by a coordinated finite verb, i.e. und vermelden ‘and announce’ in (25a) or und ist vermeldet worden ‘and has been announced’ in (25b). (24) (25)

in ansehen vnd betrachtung der obberürten stattlichen interceßion vnd Fürbitten/ ‘while looking at and viewing of the above mentioned intercessions and prayers (...)’

(A 226.21)

a. Sonst reden die Catholischen von diesem Osterreichischen Friedensschluß gantz spöttlich/ mit vermeldung/ daß solcher kein bestandt werd haben können. (A 25.3) ‘Otherwise the Catholics talk about this Austrian peace agreement rather mockingly, and announce that this agreement will not last.’ b. also ist jhnen das predigen wieder erlaubt worden/ mit vermelden/ man hette den Geistlichen etwas zu gefallen thun müssen/ (A 150.8) ‘Therefore they have been allowed to preach again His Majesty, and it has been announced that a favor had to be done to the clergymen.’

The ung-nominal in Early New High German is therefore much closer to the verbal end of the deverbalization continuum than its counterpart in Present-day German. In the following section, I look into the argument structure of ung-nominals, in order to provide further evidence for the categorial shift of ung-nominals in the history of German. 3.2. Argument linking and aspectual shift The argument structure of deverbal nominals is inherited from their verbal origins. Differences between verbs and nouns are reflected by the form of their arguments: in Present-day German, arguments of nouns are realized either as pre- or postnominal genitive phrases or as von-PPs. With regard to the present discussion, however, the crucial difference between the argument structure of verbs and nouns is the well-known observation that not all verbal arguments may be inherited by the deverbal nominal. There is a particularly rich literature on the issue of argument inheritance by -er derived nominals in Germanic, because the external argument of the verbal source is systematically dropped by the derived nominal, excluding nominalizations of verbs lacking an external argument (for German, see Fanselow, 1988; Reis, 1988; Olsen,1992; for Dutch, see Booij,1986; for English, see Rappaport Hovav & Levin, 1992). Ehrich & Rapp (2000) focus on the argument-taking abilities of ung-nominals denoting eventualities in German. They argue that only activity and state verbs allow the external argument to be realized as complement of an ung-nominal, attributing this restriction to the aspectual properties of the base verb. The relevant grammaticality contrast is displayed below: The postnominal genitive complement may be interpreted as the object or the subject argument, if the base verb is an activity verb as in (26). This ambiguity does not arise with accomplishments as verbal source, as in (27). (26)

(27)

a. Die extra zur Beobachtung des Nordlichts angereisten Schweizer haben Glück. ‘The Swiss people who have come exclusively to watch the aurora borealis are lucky.’ b. Anschliessend übten die Akteure mit dem Handball Spielsituationen unter der Beobachtung des Trainers. ‘Afterwards, the handball players practised game situations while being observed by the trainer.’ Die Vernichtung der Akte/*des Staatssekretärs erfolgte vorsorglich. ‘The destruction of the file/of the state secretary was carried out as a precaution.’

(A09/JAN.00065) (A08/OKT.08877)

In Ehrich & Rapp’s view, the non-availability of the subject reading in cases like (27) is due to the fact that ung-nominals emphasize the state part in the lexical semantic structure of accomplishments, i.e. the first argument of the DO predicate is not part of the noun’s argument structure. This also holds for nominals based on achievement verbs,17 suggesting that the nominal argument structure is restricted to the lowest affected argument as soon as the lexical semantic structure includes a result state. The linking of thematic arguments with subject and object position according to Ehrich and Rapp (2000) is given under (28). Note that ung-nominals derived from activities and states such as Beobachtung ‘watching’ and Bewunderung ‘admiration’ inherit both thematic arguments, occasionally giving rise to ambiguous readings of genitive complements.18 (28)

a. b. c. d.

Vernichtung ’destruction’ (ly) le [DO ((x, y) r) & BEC ((BE ((y) s)) e)] Erreichung ’reaching’ (ly) le [BEC ((APPL ((x,y) s)) e)] Beobachtung ’watching’ (ly) (lx) lr [DO ((x, y) r] Bewunderung ’admiration’ (ly) (lx) ls [POSS ((x, y) s]

(only object) (only object) (subject or object) (subject or object)

17 The only argument of achievements such as verdunsten ‘evaporate’ always get a subject reading (die Verdunstung des Wassers ‘the evaporating of the water’). 18 Ehrich & Rapp (2002) assume that the lexical meaning of verbs can be decomposed into basic predicates indicating both their thematic structure and their event structure. Basic predicates are: DO ¼ do, BE ¼ be, BEC ¼ become, POSS ¼ possess and APPL ¼ application. Apart from thematic verbal arguments, linked to the positions of subject and object respectively, they use the variables r, s, and e to represent referential arguments of basic prediactes (i.e. processes, states, and events).

Please cite this article in press as: Demske, U., Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English, Language Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006

10

U. Demske / Language Sciences xxx (2018) 1–12

The restrictions with respect to linking properties of certain ung-nominals are considered to be yet another nominal property of the deverbal nominal. Ehrich and Rapp (2000) stress the fact that the DO predicate, i.e. the dynamic part of the lexical semantic structure, is prefered when verbs are affected by linking conflicts.19 Alexiadou et al. (2013) likewise suggest that restrictions considering the realizations of external arguments in deverbal nominals have to be accounted for in terms of aspectual properties (at least to a certain extent).20 In particular, they state that non-agentive external arguments require a result state predicate in the lexical semantic structure of the deverbal nominal, which is lacking in nominal gerunds in English and nominalized infinitives in German, but is present in other nominalization patterns such as derived nominals in English21 and ung-nominals in German. Alexiadou et al. (2013) claim that differences with respect to argument linking do not correlate with categorial differences between verb and noun, but are triggered by different nominalization devices: nominal gerunds in English pattern with nominalized infinitives in German, because they both focus on the process part of accomplishment verbs. In the previous subsection, we have seen that ung-nominals underwent a change as regards their aspectual properties, raising the question whether these changes correspond to changes in argument structure. Particularly interesting is the question whether restrictions governing argument linking in Early New High German can be found that are similar to those we observed for Present-day German. With regard to process (29) and state nominalizations (30) first, we can find no difference between their argument structures in Present-day German and Early New High German. Subject as well as object arguments of the base verb may appear as prenominal or postnominal genitives. (29)

a. b.

(30)

a.

b.

demnach der Rebell Joseph Bassa [...] / des Veziers Musterung vernommen/ ‘after the rebel Joseph Bassa [...] has heard about the Vezier’s inspection’ was vnd so viel die Musterung der gemeinen Landts Vnterthanen betrifft/ ‘as far as and to what extent the inspection of the common subjects is concerned’ Es continuirt Frater Fulgentius/ mit grossem Eifer vnd menniglichs verwunderung die Evangel. Lehr/ [...]/ in die Hertzen der Zuhörer zu imprimirn/ ‘Father Fulgentius continues with great enthusiasm and to many people’s surprise to imprint the Protestant teachings into the hearts of the audience.’ welcher jne dargegen/ in erwegung außgestandner gefahr/ mit 600. Cronen begabet ‘who endowed him therefore with 600 crowns, considering endured danger’

(A 209.14) (AC 13.9)

(A 103.17)

(AC 197.11)

From a Present-day German perspective, it is surprising that deverbal nominals based on accomplishments may include not only the internal but also the external argument of the base verb. The following examples show the ung-nominal Abfertigung ‘sending’ with the external argument in prenominal position (31a), and the internal argument in postnominal position (31b).22 (31)

a. Brieff auß Pariß melden/ das die 2. Graffen von Solms/ wie der Graff von Hohenzollern/ noch daselbsten auff des Königs abfertigung warten. (A 308.31) ‘Letters from Paris report that the 2 Counts of Solms and the Count of Hohenzollern are still waiting there for the King’s sending.’ b. man tractirt starck von abfertigung der Türck: Botschafft/ (A 333.32) ‘they negotiate intensively about the sending of the Turkish ambassadors’

Deverbal nominals of achievement verbs are also attested with subjects, irrespective of the achievement verb including one (32a) or two arguments (32b). While the former is attested in Present-day German as well (cf. footnote 16), the latter interpretation of the genitive DP is no longer available.

19 Linking conflicts may arise with accomplishment verbs like leihen ‘lend’, where the first arguments of the DO and the POSS predicate compete with respect to the subject position: since the first argument of the DO predicate obviously wins the linking conflict, the experiencer argument is realized as a dative object.

(iii) Er lieh ihm sein Fahrrad. ’he lent him his bike’ ly lz lx le [DO ((x, y) r) & BEC ((POSS ((z, y) s)) e)]

x ¼ q1, y ¼ q2, z ¼ q3

20

They elaborate on differences between different morphological types of nominalizations rather than between one nominalization pattern and the verbal source, as Ehrich and Rapp (2000) do. 21 Alexiadou et al. (2013) use the notion of derived nominals in the sense of Chomsky (1970) to refer to nominalization patterns including suffixes other than -ing, like knowledge or verification. 22 There is no systematic distribution of subject and object argument, as (31) might suggest. We also find object arguments in prenominal position: (iv)

Die Fraw Lengin hat dieser tagen/ dem Ertzhertzog Leopoldt/ einen Fußfal gethan/ vnd für jhres Herrn Erledigung gebeten/ (A 45.22) ’In the last few days, Ms Lengin has done a prostration before the Archduke L. and asked for her husband’s release.’

Please cite this article in press as: Demske, U., Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English, Language Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006

U. Demske / Language Sciences xxx (2018) 1–12

(32)

11

a. Nach außlauffung dieser Armada haben sich 40. Schiff darvon abgesündert / welche jhren weg nach Terzeras genommen / (AC 121.18) ‘After setting sails, 40 ships have left the armada and have chosen their way to Terzeras.’ b. Als Graff Moritz von Nassaw / nach erobertem Frießland / zum Haag wider ankommen / hat er mit schmertzen befunden / das sein Schwester / mit des Don Antonij di Portugall Schmeisch / auß anstifftung etlicher Geistlicher Ehelich verlobt / (AC 180.23) ‘When Count Moritz von Nassau arrived in The Hague again, after conquering Friesland, he discovered with sorrow that his sister was engaged with Don Antonio di Portugal’s Schmeisch by instigation of some clergymen.’

The data in (31) and (32) suggest that no restrictions govern the mapping of arguments from verbs to ung-nominals in Early New High German, much like the mapping of aspectual properties. I take this as further evidence that ung-nominals in Early New High German are much closer to the verbal end of the deverbalization continuum than their counterparts in Present-day German. 4. Conclusion Investigating aspectual features of nominal and verbal gerunds, Heyvaert, Maekelberghe & Buyle (this issue) argue convincingly that the suffix -ing is not an aspectual marker in Present-day English. They show that the aspectual meaning of the deverbal noun is provided by the Aktionsart of the verb conspiring with the context. The present paper has revealed that ung-nominals in Early New High German pattern with their Present-day English counterparts in this respect. As regards Present-day German, the context was also observed to contribute to the aspectual interpretation of the ung-nominals, as indicated by the observation that neologisms based on accomplishments may exhibit different aspectual values according to the context. In contrast to Present-day English and Early New High German, however, aspectual restrictions affect the range of base verbs and the inheritance of arguments in Present-day German, thus providing evidence for a categorial shift of ungnominals in the recent history of German. This nominalization pattern favors base verbs with a change of state component in their lexico-semantic structure, and the non-availability of subject readings for arguments of accomplishment nominalizations supports the assumption that ung-nominals have become more nominal (and less dynamic) in their historical development. The comparison of the aspectual properties of gerunds in Present-day English and ung-nominals in Present-day German therefore suggests that the German and English nominalization patterns occupy different positions on a continuum of deverbalization. While the English nominalization pattern can be positioned more at the verbal end of the continuum (disregarding here the differences between nominal and verbal gerunds), German ung-nominals display more nominal properties than their English counterparts. Sources A ¼ Der Aviso des Jahres 1609. Hg. v. W. Schöne, Faksimiledruck. Leipzig: Harrassowitz 1939. AC ¼ Annus Christi 1597. Historische erzöhlung/ der fürnembsten Geschichten vnd handlungen/so in diesem 1597. Jahr (...) abgelauffen (...). Rorschach 1597. Nachdruck: Walluf-Nedeln: Sändig 1977. PZ ¼ Postzeitung. Ordentliche Wochentliche Post ¼ Zeitungen. 1667. Mit Wünschung von GOTT dem Allmächtigen eines glücklichen Fried¼ und Freudenreichen Newen Jahrs. Institut für Deutsche Sprache. 2015. Deutsches Referenzkorpus / Archiv der Korpora geschriebener Gegenwartssprache 2015-II (Release vom 30.09.2015). Mannheim: Institut für Deutsche Sprache. www.ids-mannheim.de/DeReKo. References chioaia, G., Cano, M., Martin, F., Schäfer, F., 2013. The realization of external arguments in nominalizations. J. Comp. German Ling. 16, 73– Alexiadou, A., Iorda 95. Bartsch, R., 1985. On aspectual properties of Dutch and German nominalizations. In: Lo Cascio, V., Vet, C. (Eds.), Temporal Structure in Sentence and Discourse. Foris, Dordrecht, pp. 7–39. Brinton, L., 1995. The Aktionsart of deverbal nouns in English. In: Bertinetto, P.M., Bianchi, V., Higginbotham, J., Squartini, M. (Eds.), Temporal Reference, Aspect and Actionality. Vol. 1: Semantic and Syntactic Perspectives. Rosenburg & Sellier, Torino, pp. 27–42. Brinton, L., 1998. Aspectuality and countability: a cross-categorial analogy. Engl. Lang. Ling. 2, 37–63. Booij, G., 1986. Form and meaning in morphology: the case of Dutch ‘agent nouns’. Linguistics 24, 503–518. Chomsky, N., 1970. Remarks on nominalization. In: Jacobs, R.A., Rosenbaum, P.S. (Eds.), Readings in English Transformational Grammar. Ginn, Boston, pp. 184–221. Declerck, R., 2006. The grammar of the English verb phrase, vol. 1. De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin. Demske, U., 1999. Nominalisierungen im Deutschen und Englischen: Überlegungen zu einer Theorie sprachlichen Wandels. In: Kanngießer, S., Vogel, P. (Eds.), Elemente des Sprachwandels. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, pp. 98–138. Demske, U., 2000. Zur Geschichte der ung-Nominalisierung im Deutschen: Ein Wandel morphologischer Produktivität. Beiträge Gesch. Dtsch. Sprache Lit. 122, 365–411. Demske, U., 2002. Nominalization and argument structure in early new High German. In: Lang, E., Zimmermann, I. (Eds.), Nominalization, vol. 27. ZASPIL, Berlin, pp. 67–90. Depraetere, I., 1995. On the necessity of distinguishing between (un)boundedness and (a)telicity. Ling. Philos. 18, 1–19. Ehrich (-Ullmer), V., 1977. Zur Syntax und Semantik von Substantivierungen im Deutschen. Scriptor, Kronberg. Ehrich, V., 1991. Nominalisierungen. In: Stechow, A. v., Wunderlich, D. (Eds.), Semantics. An International Handbook of Contemporary Research. de Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 441–458. Ehrich, V., Rapp, I., 2000. Sortale Bedeutung und Argumentstruktur: ung-Nominalisierungen im Deutschen. Z. Sprachwiss. 19, 245–303.

Please cite this article in press as: Demske, U., Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English, Language Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006

12

U. Demske / Language Sciences xxx (2018) 1–12

Ehrich, V., Rapp, I., 2002. Nominalizations and temporal prepositions. ZAS Pap. Ling. 27, 39–66. Esau, H., 1973. Nominalization and Complementation in Modern German. North Holland, Amsterdam. Fanselow, G., 1988. ‘Word syntax’ and semantic principles. In: Booij, G., van Marle, J. (Eds.), Yearbook of Morphology. Foris, Dordrecht, pp. 95–122. Fonteyn, L., 2016. Categoriality in Language Change. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Linguistics, University of Leuven. Grimshaw, J., 1990. Argument Structure. MIT Press, Cambridge/MA. Grimshaw, J., 2011. Deverbal nominalization. In: Maienborn, C., Heusinger, K. v., Portner, P. (Eds.), Semantics, vol. 2. de Gruyter Mouton, Berlin/New York, pp. 1292–1313. Heyvaert, L., Maekelberghe, C., Buyle, A., Nominal and verbal gerunds in present-day English: aspectual features and nominal status. Lang. Sci. Special Issue on Categorial Shift. (this issue), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.009. Lees, R.B., 1968 [1960]. The Grammar of English Nominalizations. IURC, Bloomington. Lexer, M., 1999. Mittelhochdeutsches Taschenwörterbuch. Hirzel, Stuttgart. Marchand, H., 1969. The Categories and Types of Present-day English Word-formation, second ed. Beck, München. Mourelatos, A., 1978. Events, processes, and states. Ling. Philos. 2 (3), 415–434. Nehls, D., 1988. On the development of the grammatical category of verbal aspect in English. In: Klegraf, J., Nehls, D. (Eds.), Essays on the English Language and Applied Linguistics on the Occasion of G. Nickel’s 60th Birthday. Groos, Heidelberg, pp. 173–198. Olsen, S., 1992. Zur Grammatik des Wortes: Argumente zur Argumentvererbung. Linguist. Ber. 137, 3–32. Paul, H., 1920. Deutsche Grammatik. Band V, Teil IV: Wortbildungslehre, Halle a. Saale. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., Svartvik, J., 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman, London. Rappaport, H.,M., Levin, B., 1992. -er nominals: implications for a theory of argument structure. In: Stowell, T., Wehrli, E. (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 26: Syntax and the Lexicon. Academic Press, New York, pp. 127–153. Reis, M., 1988. Word structure and argument inheritance: how much is semantics? Linguistische Studien 179, 53–67. Roßdeutscher, A., Kamp, H., 2010. Syntactic and semantic constraints in the formation and interpretation of ung-nouns. In: Alexiadou, A., Rathert, M. (Eds.), The Semantics of Nominalisations Across Languages and Frameworks. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 169–214. Smith, C., 1997. The Parameter of Aspect. Kluwer, Dordrecht. Vendler, Zeno, 1957. Verbs and times. Phil. Rev. 66 (2), 143–160. Vendler, Z., 1967. Facts and events. In: Vendler, Z. (Ed.), Linguistics in Philosophy. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, pp. 122–146. Wik, B., 1973. English Nominalizations in -ing: Synchronic and Diachronic Aspects. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Uppsala. Wilmanns, W., 1899. Deutsche Grammatik: Gotisch, Alt-, Mittel- und Neuhochdeutsch. Abteilung: Wortbildung. Trübner, Strassburg. Zehentner, E., 2014. From phrase to clause(-like): on the development of present participle and verbal noun in Middle Scots. Views 23.

Please cite this article in press as: Demske, U., Aspectual features and categorial shift: deverbal nominals in German and English, Language Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.08.006