Remarks on Nominalization

In his introductory comments to this volume, Chomsky reviews the historical background surrounding the emergence of Remarks on Nominalization, the restrictive view of the syntax which it promoted, and, in that context, the need to separate syntactically predictable constructions, such as gerunds from less predictable formations, and specifically derived nominals, as described in Lees’ (1960) seminal study. It is also in that context that Chomsky reviews the emergence of the X’-scheme, offering, in particular, a contemporary perspective on its merits and drawbacks. <82>