Am I correct that these are nominalisations?

Question

A campaign (to campaign)The hope (to hope)More exercise (to exercise)A row (to row/argue)Obesity (to be obese)Earnings (to earn)I selected these because they can all take a verb form.

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

ZBHObesity (to be obese)

Obese is not a verb.
But obesity and obese are related words. One is a noun the other an adjective.

I don't want to be obese, so I count my calories. (Obese is an adjective)

If you want a verb-noun nominalisaton beginning with "ob", you can chose obey / obedience.

ZBH · Answer

Thank you.
Does that make the rest nominalisations since they have verb forms?

AlpheccaStars · Answer

ZBHDoes that make the rest nominalisations since they have verb forms?

Not necessarily.
In linguistics, nominalisation is the use of a word which is not a noun (e.g. a verb, an adjective or an adverb) as a noun, or as the head of a noun phrase, with or without morphological transformation. The term can also refer specifically to the process of producing a noun from another part of speech via the addition of derivational affixes

Since the first words on your list function as nouns or verbs without any change, it is not clear whether the noun came first (the noun was used as a verb), or the verb came first (and then the word was used as a noun). Nowadays, they are natural verbs as well as nouns, thus, they are not clear examples of nominalisation. You have to do some etymological research to determine which form is the original. Fortunately, there is a convenient on-line etymological dictionary.

1. campaign - the noun came first, then the verb. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=campaign This is not an example of nominalisation.

2. hope - this word came from two Old English words (late Old English hopa - a noun, and Old English hopian, a verb). You cannot claim this as an obvious example of nominalisation. It's not clear which has precedence.

3. exercise - the noun is from Old French exercice mid-14c., "condition of being in active operation; practice for the sake of training," . The verb came later. in the late 14c., "to employ, put into active use," from the noun exercise (n.).
This is not an example of nominalisation, but just the opposite; the use of a noun as a verb.

4. row - the origin is a noun. a "noisy commotion," 1746, Cambridge University slang, of uncertain origin, perhaps related to rousel "drinking bout" (c. 1600), a shortened form of carousal. This is not an example of nominalisation, since only recently the noun has been used as a verb.

5. obese / obesity This pair is an adjective/noun pair, but the noun came first. Obese, first cited in the 1650s, was a back-formation from obesity and in part from Latin obesus "fat, stout, plump,"

6. earn / earnings
This pair is clearly a verb/noun nominalisation. The verb has a suffix added, which creates a noun.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=earn: amount of money one makes (from labor or investment), 1732, from plural of verbal noun earning, from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=earn&allowed_in_frame=0 (v.). Old English had earnung in sense "fact of deserving; what one deserves; merit, reward, consideration, pay," but the modern word seems to be a new formation.

So only one pair of words on your list qualifies clearly as a nominalisation.

ZBH · Answer

wow, that was very insightful! Thank you! <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/> x

Am I correct that these are nominalisations?

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