Noun Contents

Nominalization[edit]

Main article: Nominalization
Nominalization is a process whereby a word that belongs to another part of speech comes to be used as a noun. This can be a way to create new nouns, or to use other words in ways that resemble nouns. In French and Spanish, for example, adjectives frequently act as nouns referring to people who have the characteristics denoted by the adjective. This sometimes happens in English as well, as in the following examples:
This legislation will have the most impact on the poor.
The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the powerful.
The Socialist International is a worldwide association of political parties.

See also[edit]

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  Grammatical case
  
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  Phi features
  
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  Punctuation
  
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  Reference
  

Notes[edit]

1. 
   ^ Example nouns for:
   
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     Living creatures (including people, alive, dead or imaginary): mushrooms, dogs, Afro-Caribbeans, rosebushes, Nelson Mandela, bacteria, Klingons, etc.
     
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     Physical objects: hammers, pencils, Earth, guitars, atoms, stones, boots, shadows, etc.
     
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     Places: closets, temples, rivers, Antarctica, houses, Grand Canyon, utopia, etc.
     
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     Actions: swimming, exercises, diffusions, explosions, flight, electrification, embezzlement, etc.
     
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     Qualities: colors, lengths, deafness, weights, roundness, symmetry, warp speed, etc.
     
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     Mental or physical states of existence: jealousy, sleep, heat, joy, stomachache, confusion, mind meld, etc.
     
2. 
   ^ Nouns occur in idioms with no meaning outside the idiom: rock and roll does not describe two different things named by rock and by roll; someone who falls for something lock, stock and barrel does not fall for something lock, for stock, and for barrel; a trick using smoke and mirrors does not separate into the effect of smoke and each mirror. See hendiadys and hendiatris.