The main objective of the book is to present a systematic account of the constructional mechanisms that underlie deverbal nominalization. Such an account strongly calls for a functional rather than purely structural approach because nominalizations are basically functional re-classifications of verbal predicates into nominal constructions. The argument is fortyfied by a detailed discussion of a number of nominalization systems (i.e. deverbal -er nominalizations, gerundive nominals and that-nominalizations). This book is of interest to all researchers in cognitive and functional linguistics.