Nominalisation

Nominalisation

What is Nominalisation?

The word ‘nominal’ is the adjective form relating to the word ‘noun’. Therefore, the term nominalisation refers to changing a verb, adjective or adverb into a noun. In English, nouns can be formed by adding prefixes or suffixes to words belonging to other parts of speech. Through this process, qualities, actions and events are turned into things, ideas or people.

When the verb, adjective or adverb is nominalised, the sentence to which the words belong to

sounds more formal and abstract.

Compared to Sentence (a), Sentence (b) sounds more formal. More examples:

Common Suffixes of Nouns

Changing Verbs to Nouns

• To change verbs into nouns, suffixes such as ‘-ion’, ‘-sion’, ‘-er’, ‘-ing’, ‘-th’ or ‘-ment’ can be used.

• The verb can be converted into a noun by adding an article.

Steps

1. Underline the verbs in the sentence.

2. Write down the noun forms of the verbs.

3. Replace the verbs with the noun forms. Use them in the sentence either as subjects or as objects.

Changing Adjectives to Nouns

• Adjectives can be changed into nouns by adding suffixes such as ‘-ness’, ‘-ity’, ‘-ency’, ‘-ancy’ ‘- ance’, ‘-ism’ and ‘-th’.

• Adjectives can also be turned into nouns by dropping suffixes.

Steps

• Underline the adjectives in the sentence.

• Write down the noun forms of the adjectives.

• Replace the adjectives with the noun forms. Use them in the sentence either as subjects or as objects.

Changing Adverbs to Nouns

• Changing adverbs to nouns is a three-step process.
• First, the suffix ‘-ly’ is dropped from the adverb (beautifully).
• The result would be an adjective (beautiful).
• Follow the rules for converting adjectives into nouns by adding or removing suffixes.

Steps

1. Underline the adverbs in the sentence.

2. Write the noun forms of the adjectives.

3. Replace the adverbs with the noun forms. Use them in the sentence with prepositional phrases. (preposition + noun phrase)

Examples