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Since the work of Gärtner (1997), the view that each node in a tree structure is the representation of a set has been pursued by some authors (Starke 2001, 2004; Citko 2005, inter alia). The purpose of this chapter is to provide evidence for this view of structures. The relevant data involve Spanish agent nominalizations, where the affix responsible for the change of category is sensitive and cancels an argument position that is otherwise required by the affix. In a multidominance account, the affixes that cancel an argument are introduced in the position which that argument requires inside the verbal structure in such a way that argument cancellation amounts to structural incompatibility. At a later step, the affix remerges on top of the verbal structure, thus projecting as a whole phrase with the verb as its complement, in such a way that the category of the set becomes nominal.

This chapter sets out the theoretical and empirical bases of the work. It introduces transitivity as a linguistic concept, as well as the categories of ‘agent noun’ and ‘action noun’. Semantic and syntactic transitivity are distinguished. It introduces Lexical-Functional Grammar, the formal framework in which analysis is provided, as a tool for the full understanding of transitivity. It summarizes the evidence for transitive nouns and adjectives in previous linguistic literature, indicates the types of word that the book will be engaging with, and looks at formal analysis. It introduces the early Indo-Aryan languages, Sanskrit and Pali, and the texts which are used as the basis for this work.

This chapter briefly considers the evidence for transitive nouns and adjectives in early Indo-Aryan in both a typological and a theoretical perspective. The fact that most transitive nouns and adjectives in early Indo-Aryan fall under the traditional heading of ‘agent nouns’ (subject-oriented formations) is typologically notable, since while action nouns with verbal government are well-known, the possibility of relatively verbal agent nouns has not always been acknowledged. The theoretical analysis is framed within Lexical-Functional Grammar, and makes use of the concept of ‘mixed’ categories to effect a clear formalization of transitive nouns and adjectives which captures their transitivity while allowing them to remain fundamentally nouns and adjectives in categorial terms.