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1.3.1.3.Ing-nominalization

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Deverbal nouns ending in -ing as well as a small set of other, less productive affixes (from now on: ing-nominalizations) are characterized by the fact that, like inf-nominalizations, they can be seen as inheriting the denotation (namely, state of affairs) and the argument structure of the verb they are derived from. In this sense, they retain verbal properties and hence are not fully nominal. Unlike inf-nominalizations, however, ing-nominalizations have lost the ability for the base verb to assign case to a theme and/or recipient argument, which must therefore be realized as a postnominal PP. This following subsections will discuss the form of the derived noun, its relation to the base verb and the restrictions on the derivational process. In Section 2.2.3.3, a comprehensive discussion of complementation of ing-nouns can be found.

I. Form of the derived noun
II. Nominal properties
III. Relation to the base verb
IV. Restrictions on the derivational process
V. The degree of verbalness/nominalness

[+] I. Form of the derived noun

The term ing-nominalization refers to the process that derives abstract deverbal nouns denoting the same state of affairs as the base verb. It is however not the case that all so-called ing-nominalizations involve the suffix -ing (see Subsection A below), and neither is it the case that all nouns derived by means of the suffix -ing are ing-nouns (see Subsections B and C below).

[+] A. Types of ing-nominalization

The most frequently used suffix in the formation of abstract deverbal nouns is -ing. This suffix is commonly used to derive a noun denoting the same state of affairs as that denoted by the input verb. Like inf-nominalizations, ing-nominalizations can be said to inherit the arguments of the base verbs. Two examples, one with an unaccusative verb and one with a transitive verb, are given in (131a&b).

131

a.		De stijging	van de prijzen	veroorzaakte	paniek.
		the rise	of the prices	caused	panic

b.		De vernietiging	van de steden	door de vijand	eiste	veel slachtoffers.
		the destruction	of the cities	by the enemy	cost	many victims

Although many verbs have a corresponding ing-nominalization, the process cannot indiscriminately be applied to all verbs, that is, unlike inf-nominalization, ing-nominalization is not fully productive. Furthermore, the form of the resulting nominalization is not fully predictable; the set of ing-nominalizations includes the forms in Table 10. With the exception of the class of nouns ending in -ing, all classes are the result of nonproductive processes, with the endings -age and -atie typically attaching to verbs of non-Germanic origin. Though they do not end in -ing, we count these nouns as ing-nominalizations on the basis of their denotation (state of affairs) and their syntactic behavior (distribution, complementation etc.).

Table 10: Types of ing-nominalizations

affix	verbal stem	example	translation
-ing	stijgen‘to rise’	stijging	'rise'
	vernietigen‘to destroy’	vernietiging	'destruction'
-age	fabriceren‘to manufacture’	fabricage	'manufacture'
	monteren‘to assemble’	montage	'assembly'
-atie	argumenteren‘to argue’	argumentatie	'argumentation'
	isoleren‘to isolate’	isolatie	'isolation'
	repareren‘to repair’	reparatie	'repair'
-ering	automatiseren'to automate'	automatisering	'automation'
	isoleren‘to isolate’	isolering	'isolation'
	formuleren‘to formulate’	formulering	'formulation'
-st	komen‘to come’	komst	'coming'
	vinden‘to find’	vondst	'discovery/finding'
	vangen‘to catch’	vangst	'catch'

Semantically, the forms in (132) also seem to belong to the class of ing-nominalization. However, since formally they correspond to either the stem or the infinitival form of the verb, it seems hard to determine whether they are derived from the verbs or whether the verbs are derived from them.

132

Nominalizations of verbs of saying: vraag'question', bevel'order', verzoek'request'

Nominalizations of verbs of believing: geloof'belief', twijfel'doubt', vermoeden'suspicion'

Finally, there are completely idiosyncratic nominal forms like the ones in (133). Since it does not seem plausible that these forms are really derived from the verbs in the first column of the table in (133), it seems reasonable to assume that these verbs cannot be the input of ing-nominalization due to lexical blocking. Nevertheless, we will treat the idiosyncratic nominal forms on a par with the ing-nominalizations.

133

verb	idiosyncratic form	“blocked” regular form
bieden‘to offer’	bod‘offer’	*bieding
jagen‘to hunt’	jacht‘hunt’	*jaging
aannemen‘to assume’	aanname‘assumption’	*aanneming
stelen‘to steal’	diefstal‘theft’	*steling
rijden‘to drive’	rit‘drive’	*rijding
vliegen/vluchten‘to fly/flee’	vlucht‘flight’	vlieging/vluchting

[+] B. Result nouns ending in -ing

Not all nouns ending in -ing belong to the category of ing-nominalizations. Many nouns ending in -ing have acquired a specialized meaning, which, even though this meaning is still related to the meaning of the input verb, is associated with the nominal rather than the verbal aspects of the nouns. This particular group of derived nouns is often referred to as “result” nouns as opposed to the “verbal” nouns illustrated in Table 10: rather than referring to the event in question, such result nouns denote the (concrete or abstract) result of that event. Examples of result nouns denoting concrete objects are given in (134).

134

verzameling

'collection'

uitvinding

'discovery'

beschadiging

'damage'

vertaling

'translation'

These nouns do not refer to the activity of collecting, discovering, damaging and translating as such, but to the result of these activities. Although perhaps less clearly so, the same phenomenon is also illustrated by the noun onderneming'company' and vereniging'society/club' inasmuch as a company can be seen as the result of some enterprise and the club as the result of the uniting of a group of people. Example (135), taken from Dik (1985a), further shows that the noun onderneming'enterprise', although related to the state of affairs denoted by the input verb ondernemen'to undertake', has acquired a specialized meaning that makes it impossible to refer to the actual event itself by means of this noun, which is therefore not an ing-noun.

135

Om de slachtoffers te bereiken	moet	men	een gevaarlijke tocht over het ijs	ondernemen.	Het ondernemen/*De onderneming	van deze tocht ...
in order to the victims to reach	must	one	a dangerous journey over the ice	undertake	The undertake/The undertaking	of this journey
'To reach the victims a dangerous journey across the ice has to be undertaken. The undertaking of this journey ...'

Abstract result nouns, although intuitively closely related to the input verb, are not true ing-nominalizations either. Again, they fail to denote the state of affairs denoted by the verb. Examples are the lexicalized nouns in (136).

136

veroordeling

'conviction'

verbazing

'surprise'

verontwaardiging

'indignation'

The (a)-examples in (137) show that these nouns can be modified by postnominal van-PPs and prenominal genitive noun phrases and possessive pronouns, but, unlike what is the case with the inf-nominalization in (137b), these modifiers will not primarily be interpreted as arguments of the head noun. Thus in (137b) the jury is having a hard time reaching a verdict: it is the act of convicting, a state of affairs, that presents problems. In the (a)-examples, on the other hand, it is the conviction itself, the result of an act of convicting performed by someone else that the jury finds hard to take. This implies that the relation between head noun and modifiers in the (a)-examples is one of possession (in addition to that of noun-theme or noun-agent).

137

a.	De jury	had moeite	met de veroordeling	van de beklaagde.
	the jury	had trouble	with the conviction	of the defendant
	'The jury felt qualms about the defendantʼs conviction.'

a'.		De jury	had moeite	met zijn veroordeling.
		the jury	had trouble	with his conviction

b.	De jury	had moeite	met het veroordelen	van de beklaagde.
	the jury	had trouble	with the convict	of the defendant
	'The jury had trouble convicting the defendant.'

For the sake of completeness, let us add that some of the nominals ending in -ing mentioned earlier are ambiguous between an abstract and a concrete reading. In (138) this is shown for the nouns uitvinding'discovery' and vereniging'society/club': the primeless examples exemplify their (concrete) result reading, and the primed examples their use as ing-nominalizations; cf. Grimshaw (1990).

138

a.	De uitvinding [van Bell]Poss	hangt	aan de muur.
	the invention of Bell	hangs	on the wall
	'Bellʼs invention hangs on the wall.'

a'.		De uitvinding	[van de telefoon]Theme	[door Bell]Agent	betekende	een doorbraak in telecommunicatie.
		the invention	of the telephone	by Bell	meant	a breakthrough in telecommunication

b.		De vereniging	telt	tweehonderd leden.
		the society	has	two hundred members

b'.		De vereniging	[van de twee landen]Agent	vond	plaats	in 1989.
		the unification	of the two countries	took	place	in 1989

[+] C. Person and object denoting names ending in -ing

There are also person and object denoting names ending in -ing, which, although semantically related to the verb from which they derive, do not denote the result of the state of affairs denoted by the verb. Examples of such nouns are person nouns like beschermeling'protégé', zuigeling'baby', leiding'leadership/management' and object denoting nouns like leuning'railing', sluiting'fastener', leiding'pipe/wire'. These nouns behave entirely like normal, basic, nouns: not only do they display all the typically nominal characteristics like (in)definiteness, pluralization, etc., but in addition, they lack an argument structure: despite their obvious relation to some verb, there is no inheritance of arguments. This is illustrated for some of these nouns in (139) and (140).

139

a.		Mijn oom	leidt	een groot orkest.
		my uncle	leads	a big orchestra

b.	het leiden/*de leiding	van het orkest	door mijn oom
	the lead/the management	of the orchestra	by my uncle
	'the leading of the orchestra by my uncle'

140

a.		Jan leunde	op de balustrade.
		Jan leaned	on the railing

b.		het leunen/*de leuning	van Jan	op de balustrade
		the lean/railing	of Jan	on the railing

c.	Jans leunen/*leuning	op de balustrade
	Janʼs lean/railing	on the railing
	'Janʼs leaning on the railing'

[+] D. Summary

Nouns ending in -ing can have a number of denotations; the various possibilities are listed in Table 11. In the remainder of this section, we will be concerned only with what we called ing-nominalizations, that is, with deverbal nouns denoting a state of affairs.

Table 11: Deverbal nouns ending in -ing

		verbal stem	derived form
states of affairs		stijgen‘to rise’	stijging‘rise’
		aarzelen‘to hesitate’	aarzeling‘hesitation’
		behandelen‘to treat’	behandeling‘treatment’
results	abstract	(zich) verontwaardigen ‘to be indignant’	verontwaardiging ‘indignation’
		(zich) verbazen‘to surprise’	verbazing‘surprise’
		veroordelen‘to convict’	veroordeling‘conviction’
	concrete	beschadigen‘to damage’	beschadiging‘damage’
		uitvinden‘to invent’	uivinding‘invention’
		verzamelen‘to collect’	verzameling‘collection’
objects	[+human]	beschermen‘to protect’	beschermeling‘protégé’
		leiden‘to lead’	leiding‘leadership’
		verbannen‘to exile’	verbanneling‘exile’
	[-human]	leunen‘to lean’	leuning‘railing’
		leiden‘to direct’	leiding‘pipe/wire’
		zitten‘to sit’	zitting‘seat/session’

For completeness’ sake, note that there are also nouns ending in -ing that are not derived from verbs, such as dorpeling'villager' and ellendeling'wretch' (which have a nominal base), stommeling'fool' and zwakkeling'weakling' (which have an adjectival base), and tweeling'twins' (which has a numeral base). As these nouns do not involve inheritance of arguments, and behave like nominals in all respects, they will not be included in the following discussion.

[+] II. Nominal properties

Like inf-nominalizations, ing-nominalizations can be used in all regular NP positions. Moreover, they exhibit most of the other nominal characteristics.

[+] A. Determiners

Ing-nominalizations can be both indefinite and definite, and may co-occur with various definite -neuter determiners like the definite article de, the demonstratives deze/die'this/that' and possessive pronouns. They can also be modified by means of quantifiers like elke/iedere'each/every', alle'all', veel/weinig'many/few' and cardinal numerals. Some examples are given in (141).

141

a.	Een behandeling	van deze patiënt	zou	succesvol	kunnen	zijn.
	a treatment	of this patient	should	successful	could	be
	'A treatment of this patient could be successful.'

b.	De/Deze/Zijn behandeling	van de patiënt	bleek	succesvol.
	the/this/his treatment	of the patient	proved	successful
	'The/This/His treatment of the patient proved successful.'

c.	Elke behandeling	van deze patiënt	veroorzaakte	nieuwe complicaties.
	every treatment	of this patient	caused	new complications
	'Every treatment of this patient caused new complications.'

[+] B. Wh-movement and Topicalization

Ing-nominalizations can also be preceded by interrogative determiners like welke, and (142a) shows that they can be wh-moved as a result. Example (142b) shows that they can also be topicalized.

142

a.	Welke behandeling	van deze patiënt	zou	het meest succesvol	zijn?
	which treatment	of this patient	would	the most successful	be
	'Which treatment of this patient would be most successful?'

b.	Deze behandeling	van de patiënt	vond de arts	afdoende.
	this treatment	of the patient	found the doctor	sufficient
	'The doctor considered this treatment of the patient sufficient.'

[+] C. Pluralization

Pluralization of ing-nouns is possible, but often leads to a marked result. In the examples in (143a&b), for instance, with explicit mention of the theme argument, Dutch seems to prefer the use of a compound noun.

143

a.	?	De verhogingen/dalingen	van de prijzen	veroorzaakten	paniek.
		the increases/decreases	of the prices	caused	panic
		'The increases/decreases in the prices caused a total panic.'

b.	De prijsverhogingen/prijsstijgingen	veroorzaakten	paniek.
	the price increases/price rises	caused	panic
	'The increase in prices caused a total panic.'

In contexts with implied (contextually recoverable) arguments, or with adjectivally modified ing-nouns, on the other hand, pluralization seems to be fully acceptable; this is shown in the examples in (144).

144

a.	De prijzen stegen dit jaar twee keer.	Deze verhogingen	leidden	tot paniek.
	the prices rose this year twice	these rises	led	to panic
	'The prices rose twice this year. All rises caused a total panic.'

a'.		De voorspelde verhogingen	van de prijzen	veroorzaakten	paniek.
		the predicted increases	of the prices	caused	panic

b.	Beide behandelingen	??(van de patiënten)	waren	succesvol.
	both treatments	of the patients	were	successful
	'Both treatments (of the patients) were successful.'

b'.	De experimentele behandelingen	van de patiënten	waren	alle	succesvol.
	the experimental treatments	of the patients	were	all	successful
	'The experimental treatments of the patients were all successful.'

Generic contexts, too, allow pluralization of ing-nominalizations, as shown by example (145). Recall that the noun overname also count as an ing-noun due to its abstract denotation; cf. Section 1.3.1.3, sub IA.

145

a.	Alle overnames	door Philips	bleken	onsuccesvol.
	all take.overs	by Philips	proved	unsuccessful
	'All take-overs by Philips proved unsuccessful.'

b.	Eerdere mislukkingen	konden	hem	niet	ontmoedigen.
	earlier failures	could	him	not	discourage
	'Earlier failures didnʼt discourage him.'

Note, finally, that pluralization of result and person/object denoting nouns ending in -ing like onderneming'company/enterprise', leiding'management' or leuning'railing' (cf. Section 1.3.1.3, sub IB and Section 1.3.1.3, sub IC) is never problematic. This may provide additional justification for not including these nouns in the set of ing-nouns.

[+] D. Modification

Ing-nominalizations also behave like nominals with respect to adjectival modification: the obligatory presence of the suffix -e on the prenominal adjectives in (146a&b) shows that we are indeed dealing with adjectival modification of a nominal, and not with adverbial modification. Note, however, that the primed examples show that modification by means of adjectives expressing frequency or duration is also possible, which is related to the verbal quality of these nominals.

146

a.		de	sterk(e)/voorspeld(e)	stijging	van de prijzen
		the	steep/predicted	increase	in of the prices

a'.		de	regelmatig(e)/voortdurend(e)	stijging	van de prijzen
		the	frequent/constant	increase	of the prices

b.		de	succesvol(le)/uitgebreid(e)	behandeling	van de patiënt
		the	successful/extensive	treatment	of the patient

b'.		de	regelmatig(e)/voortdurend(e)	behandeling	van de patiënt
		the	frequent/constant	treatment	of the patient

[+] III. Relation to the base verb

Ing-nominalizations can be said to inherit the argument structure of the input verb. Apart from the change in syntactic category (from v to ing-n), the argument structure of the input verb remains unaffected by the derivational process: both the number of arguments and their thematic functions remain essentially the same. The only difference is that while the arguments of the input verb normally are obligatorily present, those of the derived noun are not. We will illustrate this in the following subsections for a number of verb types.

[+] A. Intransitive verbs

As far as we know, there are no ing-nominalizations derived from intransitive verbs; see Subsection IV for discussion.

[+] B. Transitive verbs

An example of ing-nominalization of a transitive verb is given in (147), where the deverbal noun behandeling'treatment' inherits the argument structure from the monotransitive verb behandelen'to treat'; the derived form is given the category ing-n, rather than N, in order to express its special nature, with its combination of nominal and verbal features. The agent argument can be realized either by a prenominal genitive, as in (147b), or by a postnominal door-PP, as in (147b'). In contrast to what is the case in inf-nominalizations, the theme argument of an ing-nominalization cannot appear in the form of a prenominal accusative noun phrase: it must appear either postnominally in the form of a van-PP, as in (147b), or prenominally in the form of a possessive pronoun or genitive noun phrase, as in (147b'). The argument structure of the base verb remains basically unchanged; see Section 2.2.3.3, sub I, for more details.

147

behandelingING-N (Agent, Theme)

b.		JansAgent	behandeling	van de patiëntTheme	bleek	uiterst succesvol.
		Janʼs	treatment	of the patient	proved	extremely successful

b'.		JansTheme	behandeling	door de dokterAgent	was uiterst succesvol.
		Janʼs	treatment	by the doctor	was extremely successful

[+] C. Ditransitive verbs

Ing-nominalizations of ditransitive verbs like uitreiken'to present' also preserve the argument structure of the base verb, although instances of such nominalizations with all three arguments expressed are rare. Here, too, the theme argument typically appears postnominally as a van-PP. The agent and recipient argument (if present) take the form of, respectively, a door- and an aan-PP, which must also occur in postnominal position.

148

a.		uitreikingING-N (Agent, Theme, Recipient)
		presentation

b.		De uitreiking	van de prijzen	(aan de winnaars)	(door de burgemeester).
		the presentation	of the prizes	to the winners	by the major

[+] D. Unaccusative verbs

The derived ing-nominalization aankomst'arrival' in (149) is given an argument structure similar to that of the unaccusative input verb aankomen'to arrive'. The two (b)-examples show that the inherited argument may appear either postnominally in the form of a van-PP or prenominally in the form of a genitive noun phrase or a possessive pronoun.

149

a.		aankomstING-N (Theme)
		arrival

b.		De aankomst van Jan op Schiphol	trok	veel aandacht.
		the arrival of Jan on Schiphol	attracted	much attention

b'.		Jans/zijn aankomst op Schiphol	trok	veel aandacht.
		Janʼs/his arrival on Schiphol	attracted	much attention

[+] E. Verbs with a PP-complement

ing-nominalizations can also be derived from verbs selecting a PP-theme like jagen op'to hunt'. As can be seen from example (150), the preposition selected by the input verb is inherited by the ing-nominalization. In these constructions the theme-PP can only occur in postnominal position.

150

a.		jacht opING-N (Agent, Theme)
		hunt for

b.	Jans jacht op groot wild	was illegaal.
	Janʼs hunt for big game	was illegal
	'Janʼs hunting big game was illegal.'

[+] F. Noun incorporation (compounding)

It is quite common for the theme arguments of an ing-nominalization to be incorporated into the noun. As shown by example (151), this is possible regardless of the type of input verb. As may be expected, incorporation of this kind results in reduction of the number of arguments of derived noun, as the argument slot of the incorporated argument is no longer available.

151

a.	De patiëntenbehandeling	*(van de dagpatiënten)	was ontoereikend.
	the patientʼs treatment	of the day patients	was inadequate
	'The treatment of patients left much to be desired.'

De prijsuitreiking

*(van de Oscars)

is volgende week.