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Language Science Lecture Series: How to Nominalize a Clause: A Study of Ndebele

Asia Pietraszko

University of Rochester

Humanities Center Rm D

In many languages, embedded clauses are nominalized. Such constructions are commonly analyzed as clauses contained within a nominal layer, but the precise content of the nominal layer is not always easy to determine. Nominalized clauses tend to lack an overt noun, containing instead only nominal morphemes, such as determiners or case markers. This has motivated analyses in terms of mixed categories, in which nominal morphology occurs within an otherwise verbal structure. Such analyses are, however, inconsistent with the influential theory of extended projections (Grimshaw 1991, 2000), which prohibits the mixing of categories. This has motivated alternative approaches to nominalization that preserve the integrity of extended projections. In this talk, I present evidence from Zimbabwean Ndebele that strongly favors a mixed-category approach of nominalized clauses, suggesting that the theory of extended projections is too strong.