Verbal and nominal properties in deverbal and process nominals

This dissertation is an investigation of the morpho-syntax of Korean nominalization constructions. There has been a huge amount of debates about the so-called mixed categories such as gerunds which are loosely defined as major lexical categories (generally noun, verb, adjective) which show morphological or syntactic properties of one of the other categories. However, I claim that, given recent proposals to decompose a single category into smaller categories such as lexical decomposition into primitive semantically contentful functional categories, the assessment that gerunds are in fact mixed categories is not valid. In other words, I claim that traditional wisdom about clustering of certain properties with certain first-order categories are illusion.; In this dissertation, I pursue lexical decomposition where traditional first-order categories like verb are decomposed and constructed exo-skeletally in terms of Borer. If so, the traditional treatment of gerunds as mixed categories is not valid anymore because the so-called unmixed categories with canonical properties and mixed categories with atypical combinations of properties cannot be distinguished by those properties.; In pursuing the lexical decomposition wisdom, the idea of Grimshaw's Extended Projection theory where certain sequences of functional heads are associated typically with verbs, but not nouns will also be incorporated with necessary modifications. In taking a decompositional approach along the line of Borer and Marantz, the decompositional structure of a typical and atypical verb is provided with possible combinations of f-heads which give rise to the perception that there is a mixed category.; For technical details, I adopt the single-engine hypothesis by eliminating the lexicon and constructing lexical items in one huge syntax. Concretely, I claim that all nominalizations are syntactically derived. However, in syntactic derivation, some functional categories can get associated with an atomic label as found in process nominals, which is possible through the mechanism of Spanning Vocabulary Insertion proposed adopting Williams (2003). By contrast, functional categories in other types of deverbal nominals are associated with one p-label after undergoing Fusion. Other verbal inflectional functional categories are combined in surface by PF-merger. The vexing distinction between LNCs (Lexical Nominalization Constructions) and PNCs (Phrasal Nominalization Constructions) in syntax-all-the-way-down approach which led earlier researchers to posit that Lexical Nominalization Constructions are derived in the lexicon can now be drawn from the difference between root-based vs. word-based word formations. In general, LNCs are the results of affixing the nominalizers to the roots, whereas PNCs are formed by attaching the nominalizers to the words.; In sum, this dissertation deals with the so-called mixed categories with a general mechanism of word-formation based on the single-engine syntactic approach coupled with a lexical decomposition. I show that the traditional idea that clustering certain properties are necessarily associated with certain first-order categories is not valid. Rather, the idea that certain sequences of functional heads are associated with verbs (and possibly others with nouns) is supported.