verbales

Verbales is a linguistic term used to refer to words that originate from verbs and function outside of the verb system. In various grammars, verbales describe deverbal forms—words built from a verb that take on nominal, adjectival, or other non-verb roles. The best-known examples in English are verbal nouns and participles, which illustrate how a verb’s meaning can be repurposed in a sentence.

Verbal nouns include gerunds and infinitives used as nouns. For example: Swimming is fun (gerund as subject); To swim is healthy (infinitive as subject). Verbal adjectives are participles used to modify nouns: a running stream, a broken vase. Some languages have dedicated noun or adjective forms derived from verbs through affixes or patterns, and in those languages the term verbales may be used more broadly to cover all deverbal forms, including aspectual or agentive nouns.

Functionally, verbales carry verbal meaning while serving non-verb syntactic roles. They allow speakers to discuss actions, events, or processes in abstract or temporal terms, or to attribute properties associated with actions. The distinction between verbales and ordinary nouns or adjectives can be subtle and varies by language, often requiring morphological or syntactic cues to distinguish them.

In linguistic description, the term serves to group together devices that transform verb meaning into noun-like or adjective-like forms, helping linguists compare how different languages realize deverbal functions.