Poster Presentation for "What’s the Meaning of a Nominal Root? Insights from Experiments into Denominals and Similarity"

We bring experimental evidence that Kiparsky’s (1997) distinction between true denominals ("tape") and pseudo denominals ("hammer") is not structural but pragmatic. The acceptability of sentences where denominals combine with various PP-objects is driven by object similarity to the incorporated root ("He taped with band aids"). We investigate the nature of this similarity, showing that participants are sensitive to multiple aspects which define nominal roots (shape, material, use).