Nominalization and conjugated form


As far as I understood, the nominalization is made with the neutral form of
the verb followed by の or こと, as in the example

> 私は読むことが好きです。I like to read.

Though, I found this example where the verb is conjugated.

> この本は、読んだことがありますか ? Have you ever read this book?

How is that possible?




> この本は、読んだことがありますか ?

You're right that that is how nominalisation works. Whether you would call it
nominalisation in this example is, I think, debatable.

...ことがある is a set phrase which means "there are times when..." / "there is a
time when". So when you convert it to the question form you get "are there
times when... " / "is there a time when ... " which more naturally becomes
"have you ever ...".

I say it's a set phrase but you can analyse it quite simply. こと is a word with
many meanings. If we pick 'occasion' as the translation in this case then we
get the relative clause 読んだこと meaning "occasion when you read". I'm sure you
already know that Xがありますか means "is there X", so you can quie naturally
understand the whole sentence as "is there in occasion when you read this
book", i.e. "have you ever read this book".




> この本は、読んだことがありますか ?

You're right that that is how nominalisation works. Whether you would call it
nominalisation in this example is, I think, debatable.

...ことがある is a set phrase which means "there are times when..." / "there is a
time when". So when you convert it to the question form you get "are there
times when... " / "is there a time when ... " which more naturally becomes
"have you ever ...".

I say it's a set phrase but you can analyse it quite simply. こと is a word with
many meanings. If we pick 'occasion' as the translation in this case then we
get the relative clause 読んだこと meaning "occasion when you read". I'm sure you
already know that Xがありますか means "is there X", so you can quie naturally
understand the whole sentence as "is there in occasion when you read this
book", i.e. "have you ever read this book".

