Substantivizáció

Substantivizáció, or nominalization, is a linguistic process by which words or phrases of other parts of speech are converted into or used as nouns. It allows speakers to refer to actions, processes, properties, or objects as discrete entities within a sentence.

Nominalization occurs through different mechanisms. Morphological nominalization adds affixes, as in English -tion (creation), -ment (development), or Hungarian -ás/-és, yielding new nouns. Conversion, or zero-derivation, uses the same form for noun and non-noun uses, as in "drive" (noun) and "to drive" (verb).

Adjectives can be nominalized to form noun phrases such as "the rich" or "the young," while verbs can be nominalized to express events: "the running of the engine" or "the development of technology." In English, determiners and number marking accompany these forms (a decision, the decision).

Nominalizations enable abstraction and the construction of complex syntactic structures, including noun phrases that function as subjects, objects, or complements. They also influence interpretive focus and can affect readability; heavy nominalization can lead to denser, less direct prose.

Across languages, strategies vary. Some languages rely heavily on affixes to create nominalizations, others on syntactic constructions or word order. The availability and productivity of nominalizations interact with systems of tense, aspect, case marking, and definiteness, shaping how actions and qualities are encoded in discourse.