This paper addresses a fundamental problem of derivational morphology: which meanings are possible for the words of a given morphological category, which forms can be chosen to express a given meaning, and what is the role of the base in these mappings of form and meaning? In a broad empirical study we examine the extent to which two types of nominalizations in English – conversion nouns and -ing nominalizations – can express either eventive or referential readings, can be quantified as either count or mass, and can be based on verbs of particular aspectual classes (state, activity, accomplishment, achievement, semelfactive). Past literature (for example, Grimshaw 1990 Brinton 1995, 1998 Borer 2013) has suggested an association between conversion nominalization, count quantification, and referential reading on the one hand, and between -ing nominalization, mass quantification and eventive reading on the other. Using a subset of the data reported in Andreou & Lieber (2020), we give statistical evidence that the relationship between morphological form, type of quantification, and aspectual class of base verb is neither categorical, as the literature suggests, nor completely free, but rather is probabilistic. We provide both a univariate analysis and a multivariate analysis (using conditional inference trees) that show that the relationship among the variables of morphological form, eventivity, quantification and aspectual class of base is complex. Tendencies sometimes go in the direction suggested by past literature (e.g. -ing forms tend to be eventive), but sometimes contradict past predictions (conversion also tends to be eventive). We also document that an important role is played by the specific verb underlying the nominalization rather than the aspectual class of verb. Finally, we consider what the pattern of polysemy that we uncover suggests with respect to theoretical modeling, looking at syntactic models (Distributed Morphology), lexical semantic models (the Lexical Semantic Framework), Analogical Models, and Distributional Semantics.

中文翻译：

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转换名词和名词化的语义：定量和理论视角

本文解决了派生形态学的一个基本问题：给定形态学类别的单词可能具有哪些含义，可以选择哪些形式来表达给定的含义，以及在这些形式和含义的映射中，基础的作用是什么？在一项广泛的实证研究中，我们检查了英语中两种名词化的程度——转换名词和——ing名词化 - 可以表达事件或参考阅读，可以量化为计数或质量，并且可以基于特定方面类（状态，活动，成就，成就，自我）的动词。过去的文献（例如，Grimshaw 1990 Brinton 1995、1998 Borer 2013）提出了转换名词化、计数量化和参考阅读之间的关联，以及在 -ing另一方面，名义化，质量量化和事件阅读。使用 Andreou & Lieber (2020) 报告的数据子集，我们提供统计证据表明，形态形式、量化类型和基础动词的体态类别之间的关系既不是文献表明的分类的，也不是完全自由的，而是而是概率性的。我们提供单变量分析和多变量分析（使用条件推理树），表明形态形式、事件性、量化和碱基的方面类变量之间的关系是复杂的。趋势有时会朝着过去文献建议的方向发展（例如 -ing形式往往是多事的），但有时与过去的预测相矛盾（转换也往往是多事的）。我们还记录了名词化背后的特定动词而不是动词的体态类发挥了重要作用。最后，我们考虑我们发现的多义模式在理论建模方面的建议，查看句法模型（分布式形态学）、词汇语义模型（词汇语义框架）、类比模型和分布语义。