The competition of event nominalization procedures of French, in comparison with German

This article provides a semantic comparison of several of the most common event nominalization procedures of French and German. It is based on the hypothesis that each language disposes of a unique paradigm of event nominalization procedures, which differ slightly with regard to certain semanticpragmatic features. The nominalization procedures which are taken into consideration for French are -age, -ation, -ment, -ee and the nominalized infinitive, while -ung, the nominalized infinitive, and root conversions are discussed for German. The paradigmatic oppositions existing between the corresponding procedures are defined for each language using an inventory of six distinct semantic-pragmatic features. Four of these features relate to aspectual values, while the two remaining features deal with distinctions relating to the perspectivation of the events denoted by the base verbs (i.e. active or passive perspective, demotion of event participants).