Er-nominalisations which take CP complements are rare in English, but possible. A common construction involving one is to be a firm believer that…. I propose that the behaviour of CP-taking er-nominalisations (‘CoPTErs’) results from a tension. On the one hand, they are Argument Structure Nominals in the sense of Grimshaw (1990), and they ‘inherit’ the argument-taking properties of their parent verb. So if the parent verb believe can take a CP argument, the corresponding er-nominalisation believer should be able to take a CP argument too. On the other hand, they are nouns. And since Stowell (1981), a long line of work has argued that a noun simply cannot take a CP as an argument. I argue that this tension is usually fatal, which is why CoPTErs are fairly unacceptable when placed in argument positions. It's only when they are used as predicate nouns that they become acceptable – but even then, the CP does not pattern like a true argument of the noun. I sketch a possible analysis, in which the CP complement to a CoPTEr adjoins to the predication and binds a variable (of category D) in the CoPTEr's argument position.

Blackfoot verbs are marked with nominal agreement morphology in relative clauses, in place of verbal inflection. These relative clauses have previously been analyzed as nominalizations. The present study shows that a nominalization analysis makes incorrect predictions about the morphological composition of relative clauses, as well as the availability of non-agentive and possessive constructions, and adjectival modification. This study demonstrates that relative clauses can relativize subjects, direct objects, and indirect objects. Based on observations about obviation, recursion, long-distance extraction, inflection, and word order, I propose that relative clauses are participles: clausal entities with a nominal superstructure. This accounts for their mixed clausal and nominal properties, and provides an analysis of Blackfoot relative clauses similar to those proposed for related Algonquian languages.

In this paper, I show that Embick's (2010) cyclic head approach to regular morphology alone cannot account for the freely available variations in the realization of nominalizers in English nominalizations involving overt verbalizers. Instead, I offer an account of the regularity effects using the technology of Local Dislocation (Embick and Noyer 2001, Embick and Marantz 2008, Embick 2007a, 2007b). Using this analysis, I derive both the variable nominalization patterns and the restrictions on particles and results in derived nominals from Sichel (2010). By treating regularity as the by-product of extant morphosyntatic operations, we can better explain the distribution of regular and irregular nominalizers and account for particle/result restrictions in English derived nominals.