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=                           Nominalization                           =
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                            Introduction
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In linguistics, nominalization or nominalisation is the use of a word
which is not a noun (e.g., a verb, an adjective or an adverb) as a
noun, or as the head of a noun phrase, with or without morphological
transformation. The term refers, for instance, to the process of
producing a noun from another part of speech by adding a derivational
affix (e.g., the noun 'legalization' from the verb 'legalize').

Some languages simply allow verbs to be used as nouns without
inflectional difference (conversion or zero derivation), while others
require some form of morphological transformation. English has cases
of both.

Nominalization is a natural part of language, but some instances of it
are more noticeable than others. Writing advice sometimes focuses on
avoiding overuse of nominalization.


English
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Two types of nominalization are found in English. One type requires
the addition of a derivational suffix to create a noun. In other
cases, English uses the same word as a noun without any additional
morphology. This second process is referred to as zero-derivation.


With derivational morphology
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This is a process by which a grammatical expression is turned into a
noun phrase. For example, in the sentence "Combine the two chemicals,"
'combine' acts as a verb. This can be turned into a noun via the
addition of '-ation', as in "The experiment involved the 'combination'
of the two chemicals."

Examples of nouns formed from adjectives:

*applicability (from applicable)
*carelessness (from careless)
*difficulty (from difficult)
*intensity (from intense)

Examples of nouns formed from verbs:

*failure (from fail)
*nominalization (from nominalize)
*investigation (from investigate)
*movement (from move)
*reaction (from react)
*refusal (from refuse)

An especially common case of verbs being used as nouns is the addition
of the suffix '-ing', known in English as a gerund.

*swimming (from swim)
*running (from run)
*editing (from edit)


With zero-derivation
======================
Some verbs and adjectives in English can be used directly as nouns
without the addition of a derivational suffix. Some examples include:

change

*'I need a change.' ('change' = noun)
*'I will change.' ('change' = verb)

murder

*'The murder of the man was tragic.' ('murder' = noun)
*'He will murder the man.' ('murder' = verb)

In addition to true zero-derivation, English also has a number of
words which, depending on subtle changes in pronunciation, are either
nouns or verbs. One such type, which is rather pervasive, is the
change in stress placement from the final syllable of the word to the
first syllable (see Initial-stress-derived noun).

increase
*'Profits have shown a large increase.' ('increase'  = noun)
*'Profits will continue to increase.' ('increase'  = verb)

An additional case is seen with the verb 'use', which has a different
pronunciation when used as a noun.

use

*'The use of forks is dangerous.' ('use'  = noun)
*'Use your fork!' ('use'  = verb)

In some circumstances, adjectives can have nominal use, as in 'the
poor' to mean poor people in general. See nominalized adjective.


Other Indo-European languages
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Many Indo-European languages have separate inflectional morphology for
nouns, verbs, and adjectives, but often this is no impediment to
nominalization, as the root or stem of the adjective is readily
stripped of its adjectival inflections and bedecked with nominal
inflections�sometimes even with dedicated nominalizing suffixes. For
example, Latin has a number of nominalization suffixes, and some of
these suffixes have been borrowed into English, either directly or
through Romance languages. Other examples can be seen in German�such
as the subtle inflectional differences between 'deutsch' (adj) and
'Deutsch' (noun) across genders, numbers, and cases�although which
lexical category came first may be moot. Spanish and Portuguese, whose
'o/os/a/as' inflections commonly mark both adjectives and nouns, shows
a very permeable boundary as many roots straddle the lexical
categories of adjective and noun (with little or no inflectional
difference).


Chinese
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In all varieties of Chinese, particles are used to nominalize verbs
and adjectives. In Mandarin, the most common is � 'de', which is
attached to both verbs and adjectives. For example, � 'chī' (to eat)
becomes �� 'chīde' (that which is eaten). Cantonese uses �
'ge' in the
same capacity, while Minnan uses 'ê'.

Two other particles, found throughout the Chinese varieties, are used
to explicitly indicate the nominalized noun as being either the agent
or patient of the verb being nominalized. � ('su�' in Mandarin) is
attached before the verb to indicate patient, e.g. � (to eat) becomes
�� (that which is eaten), and �
('zh�' in Mandarin) are attached after
the verb to indicate agent, e.g. � (to eat) becomes ��
(he who eats).
Both particles date from Classical Chinese and retain limited
productivity in modern Chinese varieties.

There are also many words with zero-derivation. For instance, ��
'ji� oyù' is both verb (to educate) and noun (education). Other cases
include �� 'bi� nhu� ' (v. to change; n. change), �� 'b�ohù' (v. to
protect; n. protection), �� 'k�ngjù' (v. to fear; n. fear; adj.
fearful), etc.


Tibeto-Burman
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Nominalization is a pervasive process across Tibeto-Burman languages.
In Bodic languages nominalization serves a variety of functions,
including the formation of complement clauses and relative clauses.


Japanese
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Japanese grammar makes frequent use of nominalization (instead of
relative pronouns) via several particles such as � 'no', �� 'mono' and
�� 'koto'.


Hawaiian
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In Hawaiian, the particle ʻana is used to nominalize. For example,
"hele ʻana" is Hawaiian for "coming." Hence, "his coming" is "kona
hele ʻana."


Zero-derivation in other languages
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A few languages allow finite clauses to be nominalized without
morphological transformation. For instance in Eastern Shina (Gultari)
the finite clause [mo buje-m] 'I will go' can appear as the
nominalized object of the postposition [-jo] 'from' with no
modification in form:
:


                              See also
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*Nominal (word)
*Pronominal
*Initial-stress-derived noun
*Deverbal noun
*Verbal noun


                             References
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*Shibatani, Masayoshi, and Khaled Awadh Bin Makhashen. 2009.
Nominalization in Soqotri, a South Arabian language of Yemen. In W.
Leo Wetzels (ed.) Endangered languages: Contributions to Morphology
and Morpho-syntax. Leiden: Brill. 9-31.
*Kolln, M. (1990), Understanding English Grammar, 3rd edn, Macmillan,
p. 179.
*[http://brng.jp/en/Japanese-Knowledge-Koto/ Nominalization by
Particle Koto in Japanese], Benri Nihongo
*


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