nominals

Nominals are words or phrases that function as nouns within sentences. In linguistics, the category includes lexical nouns, pronouns, proper names, and noun phrases, as well as nominalized forms derived from verbs or adjectives. Nominals refer to entities such as people, places, things, or ideas, or to sets or properties.

In sentences, nominals can occupy core positions such as subject or object, and may appear inside determiner phrases. A typical nominal phrase centers on a noun or pronoun—the head—often with determiners, adjectives, numerals, or qualifiers. Word order and structure vary by language; in English determiners usually precede adjectives and the noun.

Nominals often bear morphological features such as number, case, or gender, depending on the language. English marks number on nouns and pronouns and uses articles to signal definiteness, while other languages show richer case systems and agreement on the noun and its modifiers.

Nominalization is the process of turning non-nominal words into noun-like nominals, enabling references to events or ideas. Examples include “running” (the act of run) or “democracy” derived from “democratic” in some analyses.

Semantically, nominals map to referents or sets of referents. Count nouns denote individuals; mass nouns refer to substances; pronouns provide deictic or anaphoric references; proper nouns name specific entities.

Across languages, nominals vary in form and function. Some mark case on the noun or use rich agreement; others rely on word order or separate function words to encode determiner or number information.

In linguistic descriptions, nominal phrases and noun phrases are central concepts; nominalization links nominals with verbs and adjectives and broad discourse structure.