Nominalization: Turning Verbs and Adjectives into Nouns

Some questions about grammar sound harder than they are. What is nominalization? is one of them. The word is long, but the idea is small: you take a word that is not a noun and use it as one. The reaction you feel to a news story is a noun made from the verb react. The happiness of a child is a noun made from the adjective happy. And the request in your inbox is a noun that looks exactly like the verb. This guide shows how these nouns are made, how to recognize them, and when to prefer the verb.

What nominalization means

Nominalization, also spelled nominalisation in British English, is using a word that is not a noun, such as a verb, an adjective or an adverb, as a noun or as the head of a noun phrase. Sometimes the word changes shape and sometimes it does not. Wiktionary describes the result more simply: a noun formed from another word, such as an adjective or a verb. In English this often happens by adding a suffix like -ity, -tion or -ism, so proliferate becomes proliferation and corrupt becomes corruption.

The word nominalization itself is a good example. It comes from the Latin word for name, which is also the source of nominate and noun. Making a nominalization is, in a way, giving an action or a quality a name.

Verbs into nouns

Nouns made from verbs are called deverbal nouns. A few endings do most of the work.

You can learn each ending as a small family, and the -tion and -sion guide shows how to decide between two of them when spelling. In general, an ending tells you the word is a noun even before you read the sentence: -tion, -ment, -al and -ing are all signs of a noun made from a verb.

Adjectives into nouns

Nouns made from adjectives name a quality.

Here again the ending reveals the part of speech. If you see -ness or -ity at the end of a word you do not know, it is very likely a noun that names a quality. For more of these clues, the parts of speech guide shows how to read a word from its ending.

No change at all: conversion

Some verbs become nouns without any change. This is called conversion, or zero derivation, because the word changes job and keeps its shape. The reference article on the subject notes that many English nouns are formed from unmodified verbs: a fisherman's catch, a walk in the park, and the technical terms download, update and print.

The best-known question in this area is about request. What is the noun form of request? It is request. Wiktionary lists request as a verb (to ask for something) and as a noun (the act of asking, or a formal message asking for something). Both come from the same Old French source, and neither needs an ending.

• Verb: Please request a copy of the form.
• Noun: Your request has been received.

Other everyday pairs work the same way: a change and to change, a plan and to plan, a visit and to visit. A few pairs do change in speech even though they look the same on the page. In increase, for example, the noun is stressed on the first syllable and the verb on the second. The same pattern, applied to a larger group of words, is the subject of the heteronyms guide.

So when someone asks for the noun form of a verb, there are three possible answers:

1. a new word made with an ending (react, reaction),
2. the same word (request, request), or
3. an -ing form (write, writing), which is sometimes called a gerund when it works as a noun.

A dictionary entry tells you which is true, and it is worth checking before you guess. Not every verb has a noun with an ending, and some have more than one noun with different meanings.

When nominalization helps and when it hurts

Style advice often warns against too many nominalizations. A sentence built on them can become dense and abstract:

• The implementation of the revision of the policy was carried out by the committee.

The same idea with verbs is shorter and easier to follow:

• The committee revised the policy and put it into effect.

The first sentence hides who does what behind long nouns. The second says it plainly. An active verb is often the most direct choice, and it is a good habit to look for the action in every long noun phrase and ask whether a verb would work.

Nominalizations are not always a fault, though. They pack information into fewer words, and they are normal in academic and technical writing. In a sentence like The expansion of the market led to a rise in prices, the nouns let you talk about a process as a thing, so you can compare it, count it and give it a cause. That is exactly why they are common in academic English, and why academic vocabulary is full of them. The skill is to use them on purpose, not by habit.

A simple rule: use a nominalization when you want to treat an action or quality as a thing that you can then discuss, and use a verb when you want to describe someone doing something.

Practice set

Give the noun form, then check the answers.

1. refuse
2. adjust
3. intense
4. request
5. happy
6. Rewrite with a verb: The completion of the report was done by Friday.
7. Which of these is not a nominalization: decision, kindness, walk, quickly?
8. What is the noun form of write as a general activity?

Answers: 1. refusal. 2. adjustment. 3. intensity. 4. request (no change). 5. happiness. 6. We completed the report by Friday. 7. Quickly is an adverb. The others are nouns made from a verb, an adjective or, in the case of walk, an unchanged verb. 8. Writing.

Making it stick

Learn nouns and verbs in pairs. When you meet reaction, note that react is its verb. When you meet request, note that it works both ways. A small weekly review, in the way spaced repetition schedules it, keeps the pairs available when you write.

How Wordabulary fits in

Wordabulary finds your level with a placement assessment, then gives you practice and quizzes matched to it. Word pages list related forms, so you can see the noun, verb and adjective of a word in one place.