Verbbildande

Verbbildande, literally “verb-building,” is a linguistic term used to describe processes by which new verbs are formed from other words or through modifications of existing words. It is an umbrella concept for a range of derivational and productive pathways that expand a language’s verbal vocabulary.

The main mechanisms involved include denominal verb formation (creating verbs from nouns or adjectives using derivational affixes or through conversion), conversion or zero-derivation (shifting a word to the verbal category without an overt prefix or suffix), and affixal derivation (using suffixes or prefixes to yield verbs, such as equivalents to English -ize, -en, or -ify). Back-formation, where a new verb is created by removing elements from a related word such as a noun or agent noun, is another related process. In addition, some languages employ compounding or productive affixes that repeatedly generate new verbs from existing stems.

Examples help illustrate the idea: English denominal verbs like to bottle (from bottle) or to modernize (from modern), and back-formation like edit from editor. Zero-derivation is seen when a word like run is used both as a noun and a verb without any change in form. These processes vary across languages in the specific affixes and rules involved, but the underlying concept of verb formation from other lexical categories is widely attested in cross-linguistic morphology.

In Swedish linguistics, verbbildande describes how new verbs arise and spread within the lexicon, influencing syntax and semantics through systematic word-formation patterns. See also derivation, word formation, conversion, back-formation, and verb morphology.