Some nouns seem to behave formally and syntactically like relational nouns, the only difference being that whereas relational nouns are non-derived, these nouns are derived from either verbs or adjectives. This section considers the different types of deverbal nouns; deadjectival nouns are discussed in Section 15.2.4. Like relational nouns, deverbal nouns take arguments in the form of a postnominal PP or a prenominal genitive (i.e. -s inflected) noun phrase/possessive pronoun. These arguments can be said to be inherited from the input verb. For example, the derived noun makermaker in (163a) requires the explicit or implicit reference to an object that has been or is being made, in this case dit kunstwerkthis work of art. Similarly, the noun verwoestingdestruction in (163b) requires a reference to the theme of the action, in this case de stadthe city.

Deverbal nouns can be divided on the basis of their form and behavior into the four classes listed in Table 6. The affixes given here are those most commonly used in the derivation of the respective classes, but these classes may also include items derived with other affixes; cf. Section 14.3 for an overview of the alternative/irregular forms of these types of nominalization.

The following sections are devoted to the complementation of the different types of deverbal nouns distinguished in Table 6. They all have the same overall structure: we provide a discussion of the form and syntactic behavior of the complements of the deverbal noun, structured according to the type of input verb (intransitive, unaccusative, transitive, etc.) and the number of explicitly expressed arguments of the deverbal noun. Note that we only discuss verbs that can actually be used as input for the derivation of the noun in question; cf. Section 14.3.1 for a discussion of the restrictions on the relevant derivational processes.