Nominalization in Vietnamese: Roles of classifiers and the genitive marker của

This study examines the use of classifiers and the genitive marker của as devices for grammatical nominalization in Vietnamese, focusing on their distribution in both NP-use and modification-use contexts. The data on classifier marking largely supports Shibatani’s (2021, 2023) proposed functional hierarchy, with one minor exception. In contrast, the genitive marker của shows partial similarity to Mandarin de, functioning as a nominalizer in both NP and modification uses. However, its use is semantically and contextually restricted. These findings contribute to our understanding of Vietnamese nominalization patterns and offer further insight into cross-linguistic typologies of nominalization.