On nominalization: Genitives, datives, and elementary predicates

In this paper, focussing on Italian data, we show that nominalization processes involving na external and na internal argumente of a deverbal nominal can be reduced to a syntactic template that introduces core participants, namely the external and the internal argument, via a sort of double oblique construction. We claim that all ‘thematic’ PPs, as well as relational PPs (see also Fábregas, 2007), are uniformly linked/adjoined to the eventive noun, canonically assuming DP to be the highest functional projection dominating a the whole noun phrase. We will assume that genitives, datives, and the other obliques employed in nominalization processes correspond to part–whole relational predicates in the terms of the model of case discussed in recente work by Manzini & Savoia (2011a,b), Manzini et al. (2015), Manzini & Franco (2016). So a ‘possessor’ (genitive, dative) is essentially a ‘whole’ including a ‘part’ (the possessee). This applies between entities and between entities and events/states. Evidently, this implies that we reject tratments of genitive as a structural case (e.g., Alexiadou, 2001).