Santali zero nominals

Evidence for verbal properties in nominalization

Abstract

In the generative literature, morphologically zero nominals are taken as a subtype of derived nominals, formed directly from acategorial roots. The standard assumption holds that zero nominals, lacking argument structure and verbal properties, are fundamentally distinct from gerundive nominals. This paper challenges this traditional claim by arguing that in Santali, an Austroasiatic language spoken in the Indian subcontinent, zero nominals show verbal behavior and should be analyzed as argument supporting nominals or gerundive nominals. I claim that Santali zero nominals can maintain argument structure, take adverbial modifiers, accept aspectual modification, and exhibit high compositional productivity, which are characteristics of argument supporting nominals and gerundive nominals rather than derived nominals. Zero nominals in Santali are formed when a root undergoes verbalization before nominalization, resulting in a compositional meaning of the verb on the nominalizer. The analysis in this paper demonstrates evidence for extended verbal structure in zero nominals, implying that morphologically simplex structures like zero nominals can correspond to syntactically complex representations.