The main goal of this paper is to show that the semantic concept of events is taken not as primitive but as derived from aspect in the nominal syntax (as well as in the verbal syntax). By appealing to the two-component theory of aspect (Comrie 1976, Smith 1991, Cowper 1999 among others), I claim that the extensionality of English argument-taking derived nominals arise from the Latinate nominalizing suffix that functions to provide a grammatical aspect, perfectivity. In this view, nominalization in English is understood as a neutralizing process taking the intensional property of events (denoted by root verbs or verbal nouns) and turning it into extensionality. It eventually suggests that events, which are inherently intensional and unmarked, develop into extensional and marked forms in the nominal system as well as sentential system.
I. Event-denoting complex nominals with aspectual properties
II. Intensionality/extensionality and the two-component theory of aspect
III. The asymmetry in aspectual properties
IV. Concluding remarks
Works Cited