nounattention

nounattention is a linguistic phenomenon that describes the deliberate or incidental omission of nominal forms in speech or writing. The term was coined in the late 20th century by linguists studying discourse patterns in languages with high levels of syntactic economy, such as Japanese and certain African Bantu languages. It refers specifically to situations where a speaker or writer chooses to convey meaning using other grammatical categories—verbs, adjectives, or particles—instead of nouns.

In naturalistic discourse, nounattention often serves pragmatic functions. It can signal politeness by avoiding direct references to potentially sensitive topics, it can accelerate communication by eliminating redundant nominalization, and it can reflect cultural preferences for context over explicit labeling. For example, a Japanese speaker might omit the noun form of a dish when describing a meal, relying on the contextual inference that the listener understands the reference. Similarly, in some dialects of Swahili, the omission of the article and occasionally of the noun is a conventional way to maintain conversational rhythm.

The phenomenon is distinct from nominalization, which is the process of converting a verb or adjective into a noun. While nominalization typically reduces the verbal nature of a sentence to a concrete noun, nounattention does the opposite, rejecting nominal forms altogether. In discourse analysis, nounattention is often used as a marker of speaker identity or group membership, as well as a tool for maintaining topic coherence.

Studies of nounattention contribute to broader theories of information packaging and pronominal usage in languages. By documenting how words can be omitted or replaced without loss of meaning, researchers gain insight into the flexibility and economy of human language.