Nominalization


Nominalization is briefly making nouns or noun phrases by adding affixes to words. This conversion is mostly from a verb or an adjective into a noun. In some cases, the original word's morpheme is preserved, however, in most cases there is a morphological change during the conversion.

Also See:

Phoneme and Morpheme
Here is a list of common noun-forming suffixes

SuffixExamples
-age

-an

-ance

-tion / ion

-cy

-dom

-er / ar / or

-hood

-ist

-ism

-ity

-ment

-ness

-ship

-y
mile / mileage

Africa / African

neglect / negligence

invite / invitation

deficient / deficiency

free / freedom

visit / visitor

brother / brotherhood

active / activist

active / activism

able / ability

abolish / abolishment

mad / madness

citizen / citizenship

honest / honesty


Note:

It can also be used to form noun phrases from clauses.

For example:

Because people hunt tigers in large numbers they are facing the risk of extinction.
Because of people’s hunting tigers in large numbers they are facing the risk of extinction.

Note:

As nominalization helps you avoid repetition, it makes the text more concise thereby making your writing more abstract and more formal.

For example:

House prices are rising rapidly. As a result, first time buyers are having difficulty buying a house.

Due to the rapid increase in house prices, first time buyers are having difficulty buying a house.

The second sentence contains a nominalized expression.

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