ennouns

Ennoun is a term used in this article to describe a hypothetical subclass of noun that centers on experiential, functional, or relational aspects of a referent rather than its material substance. The category is not part of established linguistic taxonomy; it is introduced here for explanatory and pedagogical purposes.

In morphology, ennouns are often depicted as deverbal or deadjectival nouns formed from verbs or adjectives that express a process, state, role, or relationship. They typically behave like count nouns in many languages and can take determiners, plural endings, and numerals. Some languages allow them to participate in modifier structures or compound formations, while others restrict their use to specific syntactic slots.

Semantically, ennouns encode processes (development), states (enlargement), results (enrichment), or social roles (engagement). Their meaning overlaps with ordinary deverbal or nominalized forms, but the term is intended to highlight a focus on relational or experiential content rather than object identity alone. Examples used in this article include development, engagement, emergence, and enrichment.

Origin and usage: The term "ennoun" is coinage for discussion and not widely attested in the literature. It may appear in instructional materials to illustrate nominalization, polysemy, or cross-linguistic variation. Cross-linguistic notes: languages with explicit nominalization patterns can readily encode ennouns, whereas languages with strict noun classes may require periphrastic or analytic strategies. See also: noun, deverbal noun, nominalization.