This study discusses ‘recategorized’ verbs that are derived from nouns, focusing on those that have no overt categorial morphology. On the basis of evidence from past tense inflection with privative locatum verbs, I argue that the event structure can select for nouns rather than roots, and that this is another potential source of obligatory recategorization beyond determination of meaning for the root. I also dispute the empirical generalizations of Borer (2013), whose theory disallows zero-derived recategorization altogether.