Nominalized infinitives are generally considered to be bona fide event nouns that, unlike result nouns, inherit the argument structure of the base verbs in an almost unrestricted way. The empirical study presented here reveals this assumption to be a prejudice. Grammaticality verdicts from 180 native speakers indicate that there are (in some cases hitherto unidentified) restrictions governing the lexical and syntactic features of nominalized infinitives. The interaction between the restrictions is simulated in a competitive model that takes account of the grammaticality verdicts elicited via empirical testing.