Abstract

In origin, Old Irish verbal nouns are verbal abstracts that have been grammaticalized in the course of the history of the Irish language and have become a fixed part of the verbal paradigm. On the other hand, verbal abstracts in Old Irish – like in other languages – can undergo various semantic changes and can then be lexicalized in a new meaning, as subject noun, object noun, result noun, locatival noun, instrumental noun and action noun. The article examines this twofold development and, in a case study on ingrimm ‘persecution’, tries to assess the suitability of criteria like subjective genitive, article and pluralization for the differentiation of verbal noun, verbal abstract and lexicalized action noun.