FORMATION OF -ING NOMINAL COMPOUNDS AND EVENT FEATURE CHECKING

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the well-formedness of -ing nominal compounds can be explained in terms of event feature checking. Specifically, it is proposed along the lines of Borer (1994), Egerland (1998) and Van Hout (2000) that the non-delimitedness of the event described by an -ing nominal expression must be checked by incorporating a non-delimiter overtly or covertly into the -ing nominal head. It is shown that this proposal enables us to provide a unified account of the well-formedness of not only -ing nominal compounds but also their related nominalizations.