Substantivin

Substantivin is a term used in linguistics to describe a nominalizing mechanism that yields nouns from non-noun stems, typically verbs or adjectives. In discussions, substantivin refers to word-formation processes that derive nouns capable of functioning as the syntactic head of noun phrases and that take typical noun-markers such as determiners, number, and case. Unlike general nominalization, substantivin is often described as focusing on the specific morphological or grammatical pathway by which a non-noun is converted, and is sometimes associated with a particular affix or zero-derivation in a given language.

In practical terms, substantivin can be realized through affixation, conversion, or compounding, with the resulting noun frequently denoting an event, result, instrument, agent, or abstract concept related to the base word. For example, a verb such as "write" might form a noun meaning "the act of writing" or "a written work" via a substantivin process; likewise an adjective can yield a property noun. The exact form and semantics are language-dependent.

The term appears mainly in theoretical or constructed-language literature and is not an obligatory label in standard grammars. Some scholars treat substantivin as a subtype of deverbal nominalization, while others prefer broader terms like nominalization or denominal derivation.

See also: nominalization, deverbal noun, denominal.