Nounmuoto

Nounmuoto, or nominal form, is a linguistic term referring to the specific surface form a noun can take to convey grammatical information. Noun forms arise through inflection or derivation and encode features such as number, case, and possession. The exact inventory depends on the language.

In highly inflected languages, noun forms change mainly through endings. For example, Finnish employs a rich case system. The noun talo (house) appears as talo (nominative singular), talon (genitive), taloja (partitive), talossa (inessive), and as talot (nominative plural). Other cases such as allative and elative follow with talolle and talosta, respectively. Plural forms also carry genitive talojen and other endings. This pattern demonstrates how a single base noun can yield many forms to indicate its role in a sentence.

Nominal forms can also be created from verbs or adjectives by derivation. English uses -ing forms like running or -ness in happiness to turn adjectives into nouns. Finnish uses suffixes such as -minen to create nouns from verbs (puhuminen, “speaking”); agentive suffixes -ja/-jä yield words like opiskelija (“student”). These derivations expand the set of nouns beyond simple inflection of a base form.

The study of nounforms aids analyses of syntax, agreement, and determiner use, and it helps language learners recognize how meaning shifts with different noun forms. It also provides a framework for comparing how different languages structure nominal systems.

See also: noun, declension, nominalization, inflection.