Restrictions Of English Nominalizaton

Nominalization has always been the hot issue in linguistics. Many linguists of differentschools have contributed a lot to the study of nominalization, including Danish linguist Jespersen,structural approach represented by Bloomfield, transformational-generative approachrepresented by Chomsky, as well as functional approach headed by Halliday. It is noteworthythat cognitive grammarians are showing more and more interests in the study of nominalization.Among them, functional approach headed by Halliday is the most prominent one in that itprovides a more systematic theoretical framework for the study of nominalization. Hallidayholds that nominalization is a process which can transfer any element or group of elements in aclause to function as a nominal group in the clause. It includes nominalized adjectives and verbs,as well as clauses, both finite and non-finite, and nominalized adjectives and verbs are the mosttypical ones. Halliday regards nominalization as the most important device for grammaticalmetaphor. The most important features of nominalization are encapsulation and condensationwhich may lead to such merits as meaning can be expressed concisely, objectively andaccurately, and text can be organized clearly, logically and cohesively. And because of thesemerits, nominalization is preferred in such formal and written texts as scientific language.However, nominalization may also trigger some demerits, like abstraction, vagueness, andambiguity and loss of information. It is also criticized for being lifeless and wordy. Weighing upboth merits and demerits of nominalization, we find that there is of great necessity to restrict ofuse of nominalization. Here we come to the research questions of the study:1) Why nominalization should be restricted?2) What aspects of nominalization require restrictions?3) How to restrict these aspects?In this paper, firstly, studies of nominalization both abroad and at home are reviewed; then,detailed analysis of nominalization in terms of its formation, features and functions is presented;finally, based on what discussed earlier, restrictions of nominalization are discussed in detailmainly from the functional perspective (one part from cognitive approach). In this paper, firstly,we find that nominalization should be restricted in terms of formation. That is to say, not allverbs or adjectives can be properly nominalized. Those with or endowed with quantitativefeatures cannot be nominalized; in addition, some verbs or adjectives may possess different nounforms or different abstract noun forms, which leads to the selection and restriction of thoseseeming nominalizations or variants of nominalization. Secondly, nominalization is to berestricted in terms of semantic expression in that it may trigger such obstacles to readability and comprehensibility of texts as abstraction, vagueness, and ambiguity and information loss.Thirdly, nominalization should be restricted as far as text type is concerned. Nominalization ismainly employed in formal and informative texts like scientific discourse and seldom inexpressive and appellative texts though there are exceptions. Finally, nominalization is restrictedby register. To be specific, nominalization is used more f in technical topics than non-technical;nominalization is affected by such factors of participants as age, educational background andrelationship; nominalization can do benefit to the construction of politeness; nominalization isused more in written language than in spoken. In a word, nominalization is context-oriented.Having reviewed related literatures, we find that more attention have been paid to the studyof functions and employment of nominalization while little effort is put to the study ofrestrictions of nominalization. And therefore, it is hoped that this study may be helpful to thestudy of nominalization, grammatical metaphor and English language.