This paper investigates morphosyntactic, semantic and functional qualities of the complex verbal forms -mIşlIK and -mAzlIK in modern literary Turkish. It discusses their potential to serve as subordinators and explores the transitional zone between abstract nominalisation and “clausiness”, by using corpus-linguistic methodology. The results show that while these rarely used forms do have the capacity to expand into clause-like structures, they also reveal some categorially contradictory patterns. Morphosyntactically, the study attempts to rank the findings on a scale. It also looks at patterns of combinability of clausal with nominal categories. Semantically, the data reveal a tendency for these constructions to be employed in the expression of (passive) negative states and to occur with matrix predicates that express emotional experience, nonverbal communication or actions and existing states, rather than explicit verbal or cognitive processing or evaluation.