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In this paper we argue that for nominalizations the distinction between process nouns, i.e. complex event nominals, and result/object nouns made by, among others, Grimshaw (1990) and Alexiadou (2001), is too strict. We propose instead a dichotomy that is based on agentivity. We claim that both process nouns and result nouns have a +agentive and a –agentive value, associated with a difference in argument structure. We argue that in the two values both types of nouns are eventive and that the difference between process and result nouns is simply an aspectual difference. Besides the two eventive types, with a difference in argument structure, we distinguish a non-eventive type, object nouns, without argument structure.

This paper analyses the alternation between improper indirect questions and DPs containing a restrictive relative in European Portuguese. We propose that this alternation is lexically restricted, only occurring with weakly assertive cognitive definite predicates, in the sense of Hinzen and Sheehan (2011), such as saber, ‘to know’ or descobrir, ‘to discover’. We also claim that the alternation between an improper indirect wh-CP and a DP containing a restrictive relative is possible because they share significant features, namely they both involve sentences with declarative illocutionary force and wh/operator chains, and exhibit a high level of referentiality, due to the D-linked nature of the whP in the improper indirect question and the definite and specific nature of the DP that includes the relative. Keywords: improper indirect questions; restrictive relatives; weakly assertive cognitive definite predicates; European Portuguese; Spanish

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This text presents an analysis of three types of nominalization of the infinitive in European Portuguese, characterized by distinct syntactic and semantic properties but all indicated by the presence of a determiner to the left of the infinitive. In the nominal infinitive, which has more nominal than verbal properties, a process is denoted, which is why culmination verbs are forbidden in most cases. In the literature it has also been stated that transitive verbs cannot be used as nominal infinitives. However, the presence of some aspectual modifiers that force a durative and unbounded process reading may allow the occurrence of these verbs. There is also the possibility of nominalizing a full infinitival clause, denoting a fact. Since this contains verbal and tensed properties, it may contain the inflected infinitive and in most cases involves the so called Aux-to-Comp movement, it is thus analyzed here as the nominalization of CP. 1 I thank Belinda Maia for helping me in collating the examples in CetemPublico corpus and Petra Sleeman for suggestions regarding a previous version of this text. I also thank the audiences of the Workshop on Tense and Aspect in Generative Grammar.