Case assignment in Spanish nominalizations

Abstract Spanish nominalizations, structures in which a determiner precedes an infinitive (el susurrar de Mario “Mario’s whispering”), present a syntactic contradiction in which a verb exists within a Determiner Phrase (DP). Speakers attest two types: nominalizations co-occurring with nominal modifiers (e.g., adjectives, genitive case for argument expression) and those whose modifiers are verbal (adverbs, nominative/accusative arguments). Absent cartographic approaches (Cinque, 2002) predetermining the order of functional heads, the point in the derivation at which verbal categories transition into nominal ones, and this transition’s effect on case assignment, are thus far unanswered empirical questions. Using a self-paced reading task, we adopt Alexiadou et al.’s (2011) proposal to experimentally determine the cases available in each nominalization type. Results show that speakers process nominal nominalizations as expected but may allow for the possibility of adverbial adjunction, as suggested by Ramírez (2003). We propose that this data reveals the value of empirically testing syntactic proposals.