DOI 10.1007/s11098-005-0898-4

Nominalizations are expressions that are particularly challenging philosophically in that they help form singular terms that seem to refer to abstract or derived objects often considered controversial. The three standard views about the semantics of nominalizations are [1] that they map mere meanings onto objects, [2] that they refer to implicit arguments, and [3] that they introduce new objects, in virtue of their compositional semantics. In the second case, nominalizations do not add anything new but pick up objects that would be present anyway in the semantic structure of a corresponding sentence without a nominalization. In the first and third case, nominalizations in a sense ‘create’ new objects’, enriching the ontology on the basis of the meaning of expressions. I will argue that there is a fourth kind of nominalization which requires a quite different treatment. These are nominalizations that introduce ‘new’ objects, but only partially characterize them. Such nominalizations generally refer to events or tropes. I will explore an account according on which such nominalizations refer to truth makers. While the view that (certain) sentences take concrete objects as truthmakers is not an uncontroversial philosophical view, I will argue that it does receive support from the semantics of certain nominalizations. Nominalization, the linguistic process that turns expressions of various categories into nouns, allows for the formation of a referential term from predicative expressions, such as adjectives or verbs, leading to terms referring to what Montague would call ‘philosophical entities’ such as states, events, properties, or particularized, properties (tropes). The question is, how are nominalizations able to refer to such entities on the basis of the meaning of the underlying adjective or verb – the base expression? Common views are that a nominalization is able to refer to an entity d because d acts as an implicit argument of the base expression or d is the meanPhilosophical Studies (2007) 134:363–403 Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/s11098-005-0898-4 ing or a reification of the meaning of the base expression, or else because d has been constructed from such a meaning, in one way or another. I will argue that there are nominalizations of yet another kind, nominalizations that refer to entities which are only partially characterized by the base expression (and thus could not possibly be ‘constructed’ from its meaning) and yet are better not considered implicit arguments of the base expression either. These are in particular nominalizations referring to events and to tropes (or trope-like entities). The way event and trope nominalizations find their referent, I will argue, is by referring to the truth maker of a corresponding proposition. If this account of event and trope nominalizations is right, then natural language gives particular evidence for the view that sentences take concrete objects, including events and tropes, as truth makers. The idea of truthmaking, which has not been made use of so far in formal semantics, can be further exploited for a new semantic analysis of adverbial modification. In the case of events, I will provide a number of arguments both against the view of Kim (according to which event nominalizations refer to entities constructed from the meaning of the base expression, i.e., to property exemplifications) and against the Davidsonian view (according to which event nominalizations refer to implicit arguments of verbs, to primitive objects). The former view is equally problematic for trope nominalizations. The latter view moreover lacks independent motivations in the case of tropes. 1. KINDS OF NOMINALIZATIONS First some terminological clarifications. I will call both nouns obtained from expressions of another category and NPs containing such nouns as head nouns (e.g. John’s walk or Mary’s beauty) ‘nominalizations’. I will also call constructions like the fact that S nominalizations, as they make crucial use of a sentence (a nonreferential expression) as the base expression. For example, the base expression of wisdom FRIEDERIKE MOLTMANN 364