Nominalizat

Nominalizat, or nominalization in English, is the linguistic process by which a word or clause is turned into a noun or noun phrase. This allows actions, events, or propositions to function as grammatical subjects, objects, or modifiers within a sentence. The resulting nominal often encodes abstract or generalized meaning and can be the head of a noun phrase.

Nominalization occurs through several mechanisms. Derivational nominalization adds affixes to form nouns from verbs or adjectives (for example, decide → decision; run → a run; happy → happiness). Zero-derivation, or conversion, uses the same form for noun and verb: as in “the run took two hours” or “the meeting was scheduled,” where the noun is formed from the verb without an explicit suffix. Clausal nominalization turns an entire clause into a noun phrase, often with a determiner, as in “the fact that she arrived late” or “her arrival surprised us.”

Nominalization is common in many languages and serves to focus discourse on outcomes, processes, or generalizations rather than on specific actions. It can influence syntax and information structure, allowing longer or more abstract noun phrases, but may reduce immediacy and readability if overused. In linguistic analysis, nominalized forms are central to discussions of argument structure, voice, and the density of information, making them a key tool for modeling how language encodes actions and propositions as concrete entities.