GRAMMAR
Adjectival Nouns or Nominalized Adjectives?
Adjectival Nouns or Nominalized adjectives
An adjectival noun, also referred to as a nominalized adjective, is an adjective that functions as a noun as in 'look at the Irish over there'.
Before giving more examples of adjectival nouns, let's study the difference between nouns and adjectives.
Nouns vs Adjectives
A noun is a part of speech that is used to name a person, place, thing, quality, or action.
An adjective is another part of speech which gives us more information about nouns. Adjectives modify nouns.
Examples:
Adjectives | Nouns |
---|---|
|
|
Nominalization of Adjectives
It is sometimes possible that adjectives, by the process of nominalization, may function as nouns.
Consider the following examples:
- The ugly is coming.
- The other is different.
- The bad always loses
- The rich must help the poor.
The words ugly, other, bad, rich in the above examples function as adjectival nouns (or nominalized adjectives).
Nominalized adjectives vs attributive nouns
There is a difference between nominalized adjectives and attributive nouns:
- Nominalized adjectives are adjectives that function as nouns as in 'the poor, the rich, the English'.
- Attributive nouns are nouns that function as adjectives as in 'chicken soup, field player, race car, ladies room'
Related pages: