Representing actions with nouns
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Forms of nominalisation | page 6 of 8 |
Another type of verb-to-noun nominalisation
One special type of nominalisation which is very common in English typically occurs in direct object position, and involves nouns which can also be used as verbs, often intransitive verbs such as look, shower, drink:
Professor van Rooyen had a look at his barometer. (Microconcord Corpus A)
In this example, the nominalised form is used to refer to what the speaker perceives as a completed event, ie a look. Contrast this with the use of the simple verb form, where the focus is on the action of looking:
Professor van Rooyen looked at his barometer.
In this example, the noun has the same form as the verb, but with other nouns, there is some difference in form, eg live - life:
I was so inside the music, my body had a life of its own.
(Microconcord Corpus A)
The technical term for such structures is delexical verb structure. For
further information about the nouns used in delexical verb structures, see 
Representing actions with nouns: Some everyday nouns used to represent
actions.
Students have a problem with this type of nominalisation because they tend to overgeneralise, and so produce inappropriate collocations such as the following:
... give a decoration (TeleNex Students)
... make a discussion (TeleNex Students)
... make an injection (TeleNex Students)
For information on these and other mistakes students make when using nominalisations,
see
Representing actions with nouns: Students'
problems.
In some cases, the direct object seems merely to repeat the meaning conveyed by the verb:
Sing
a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye. (Traditional Nursery Rhyme)Then he'd smiled that strange, distant smile he had. (Bank of English)
For further information about these and other similar nouns, see Using transitive and intransitive verbs: a special type of direct object.
Another type of verb-to-noun nominalisation
