Event nouns in Spanish: classification and properties

Abstract

This article studies event nouns. A division is proposed into two classes, pure and drifted, such as the former never denote any concept other than an event. The grammatical properties of these nouns are explored and it is argued that event nouns must be considered di erent from nouns denoting temporal objects and any kind of deverbal nominalization. Our paper highlights the fact that all event nouns, pure or drifted, must be countable; this generalization entails the theoretical consequence that semantics and syntax should not be treated as two independent levels.