by Phil Williams | Nov 3, 2015 | Vocabulary, Words | 43 comments
Majedon April 23, 2016 at 14:04
I want to learn english
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Esraaon December 8, 2019 at 19:21
It was very helpful text . Thanks
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Sathishon July 3, 2021 at 15:19
Why “resistance ” is ending with ance instead of ence. Any rules for it ?
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Phil Williamson July 5, 2021 at 08:55
Hi Sathish,
I don’t believe there are any really useful rules for such spellings, as it’s just how the language has developed over time. With endings like -ence and -ance the vowel is generally unstressed, making it the unpronounced schwa sound, so as the spoken language doesn’t heavily dictate one sound or another, we get variations in written spelling. Often, indeed, it’s the way pronunciation has changed over time that influences how spellings evolve, so they’re not really rule-based developments.
Phil
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Bella Franchescaon October 26, 2023 at 02:28
Hi what is the difference of a adverb and a verb?
Phil Williamson October 27, 2023 at 08:39
Hi Bella, I have a few articles discussing different word types under Parts of Speech, but probably a good place to start is the Word Order guide, which discusses them separately: https://englishlessonsbrighton.co.uk/word-order-english-sentences/
Johnnyon May 2, 2022 at 00:52
Want simple answer? ……Resistant ends on -ant hence the noun formed ends with -ance
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ELB Headmakeron September 11, 2020 at 17:34
you are a pro at everthing you do
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MD.sanaullaon April 15, 2021 at 15:16
It is an authentic system for learning English.
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malakon March 11, 2023 at 07:49
phil,
can you tell me the noun of these (kind, sweet, fun, forget, mind,)
love,
lilyReply
Phil Williamson March 21, 2023 at 09:04
Hi Lily,
Sorry I missed this, there are various options for some depending on the meaning, but for example kindness, sweetness, forgetfulness and mindfulness; but mind and fun are also nouns.
Phil
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- See AlsoWhat Does Suffix Mean?—Explanation and ExamplesPrefixes And Suffixes Of English: List, Meanings, ExamplesPrefixes and Suffixes (Your Complete Guide with PDF)What are Prefixes and Suffixes? Definition, Examples - Writing Explained
Sushmita devion January 3, 2019 at 18:19
Nice…..it is a best way to learn it
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Mery Huber-Ortegaon January 7, 2019 at 22:36
I want to learn English
nice material, thanksReply
Jwala singhon January 29, 2019 at 01:50
Nice to see that
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Nofaon April 3, 2019 at 16:30
Are nouns sometime form by adding a suffix such as -ment or -Ness to a verb or adjective such as greedy or astonish?
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Phil Williamson April 3, 2019 at 16:38
Hi Nofa, yes, as you’ve identified, ‘astonishment’ is another example of a noun formed from a verb with -ment, and ‘greediness’ would be a noun formed from an adjective with -ness.
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Lydiaon April 5, 2019 at 03:36
How would you make alter a noun?
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Phil Williamson April 7, 2019 at 15:51
Hi Lydia, the examples under points 1 and 6 are for forming nouns from adjectives and other nouns. You can also often form nouns using the present participles of verbs, for example, “Running is a sport.”
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Dy Vathon May 14, 2019 at 06:26
it is very useful to study, so I have question to you explaint such. How to create the word that ending with -ive -tle -g
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Phil Williamson May 15, 2019 at 13:34
-ive is quite a common one for creating adjectives usually from verbs (to have the quality of the action):
to act – active
to create – creativeBut -tle and -g are much more general, ‘tle’ is quite a common consonant cluster that you can find at the end of many nouns and adjectives without necessarily containing a common meaning. -g is a letter that doesn’t contain a meaning on its own.
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Kennyon October 7, 2020 at 20:02
How can u change adjective and verb to noun example
Verb: Arrived, continue, submit, break, drain.
Adjective: Free, real, safe, inferior, tenderReply
Phil Williamson October 8, 2020 at 16:16
The verbs will use various suffixes, in your example -al (arrival), -tion/-sion (continuation, submission and -age (breakage, drainage).
The adjectives use some examples from the article, e.g. 2. -ity for reality, inferiority, and just -ty for safety., or 1. -ness for tenderness. Free is a different one, using -dom, which is a suffix I don’t think I included in the article – freedom, also used in words like kingdom and wisdom.Reply
Bharat bawankaron August 30, 2021 at 00:23
Please tell how to change impressive in the noun form
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Phil Williamson September 8, 2021 at 09:18
Hi Bharat,
Sorry for the slow reply as I was away – “impressive” (striking in appearance) is connected to the noun “impression” (a perceived appearance).
Phil
Ahmedon September 19, 2020 at 16:00
Can you tell my the noun of this words ?
special,creative,original,funny,incredible,serious,delightful.
Please
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Phil Williamson September 20, 2020 at 11:08
Hi Ahmed,
If you use a good dictionary, when you look up each word you will find adv, noun, verb variations. The online ones do this now. This may be useful because there won’t just be one noun form for these, depending on your needs – for example ‘special’ can be a specialist, specialism or specialty. In other cases the noun is a bit different in meaning to the adjective, for example ‘fun’ is an enjoyable activity while ‘funny’ is amusing.
Creative can be the same for a noun (as a person) or creativity.
These are more simple:
Original – originality
Serious – seriousness
Delightful – delight / delightfulnessReply
Srion October 8, 2020 at 15:58
Please tell me noun form of the words “deny”and”bury”
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Phil Williamson October 8, 2020 at 16:19
These both use the suffix -ial, denial and burial.
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Evaon October 14, 2020 at 21:25
when looking at the word chemical, what is the word formation process from the word chemical as an adjective to the word chemical as a noun
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Phil Williamson October 15, 2020 at 11:48
They are hom*onyms, i.e. the same word.
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Lillianon November 11, 2020 at 14:38
Ooooh so interesting
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Shizukaon November 19, 2020 at 15:18
Hi Phil,
While your article is mainly on converting adjectives or verbs to nouns, I suppose the use of suffixes (i.e. the addition of group of letters to the end of a “root” word) also allows us to change nouns to adjectives/verbs as well as verbs to nouns/adjectives and so on/so forth, correct?
Also, while I noticed that suffixes often allow us to convert adjectives/verbs to nouns, or verbs/nouns to adjectives, there appears to much fewer examples of nouns/adjectives to verbs. Would you be able to list a few examples of such cases (i.e. converting nouns/adjectives to verbs though the use of suffixes)?
Thanks!
Regards,
ShizukaReply
Phil Williamson November 19, 2020 at 16:02
Hi Shizuka,
Absolutely, suffixes can change many different word types into other word types (and we can on occasion have chains where a verb created by from a noun then can form a different noun, for example).
I suppose converting nouns and adjectives to verbs probably is less likely, as a lot of language for actions originates from behaviour rather than objects. Examples would most likely come from tool-related actions, though often these don’t use suffixes but rather the same word; e.g. to sail / a sail, to book / a book. I’ll have a think if I can get some other examples.
Best,
Phil
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VIVAN X. WHITEHOODon April 27, 2021 at 08:24
If you want to change a noun into an adjective in a sentence ,will the sentence change too.
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Phil Williamson April 27, 2021 at 15:56
Hi Vivan,
This really depends – do you have a specific example in mind? But it is likely to change the sentence structure where the noun is a subject or the verb is active. With state verbs that use a noun as a complement, however, the structure of the sentence might stay the same, but it will still change the meaning. At the very least, you’ll have to pay attention to determiners.
Phil
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Yessieon May 7, 2021 at 03:19
could you give us a complete list of this adjetives and nouns?
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Phil Williamson May 7, 2021 at 14:28
I’m afraid I don’t have one handy myself as there are a great many that can be made, but I will look into following this up with a bigger list of some sort.
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Darlingtonon August 1, 2021 at 00:37
How can we identify the correct suffix for a noun in adjectives that ends with ‘al’. Eg, infinitesimal, paternal etc. What suffix is proper to make it a noun?
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Phil Williamson August 2, 2021 at 09:46
Hi Darlington, I’m afraid to my knowledge there’s no simple rule to get to the noun there – except to say that actually you are removing a suffix rather than adding one (-al itself being a suffix).
In many cases it may simply be the case of removing “-al” or the last two syllables when “-al” does not connect easily to the root noun (e.g. with infinitesimal, the root noun is “infinte” – “infiniteal” would not work, so “-simal” is added). But unfortunately not all such adjectives are taken from the most common noun forms, such as your other example, “paternal” – the root “pater” refers to a father but is not used in modern English; whereas with “parental” we do use the root in English, “parent”.
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Abiha Hamidon September 12, 2022 at 21:30
This is such an informative blog/article. Thank you Phil. You’re a good addition to this world.
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Phil Williamson September 14, 2022 at 12:00
Thanks, I’m glad it was helpful!
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Sasha K.on February 26, 2023 at 07:16
Are there any suffixes in English that you can add to an adjective to make it mean “A person who is this adjective”? Like if someone is “big”, or “funny”, or “loquacious”, is there a noun they can be called derived from those words? Are there any linguistic terms for this sort of thing?
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Phil Williamson February 27, 2023 at 09:29
Hi Sasha, interesting question, I’m not sure of something specific off the topic of my head but I’d suggest that goes more into the area of compound nouns than suffixes; in that area, we could do this mostly using ‘man’ or ‘woman’ after something (or with more informal similar words like guy, gal, lad, lass, dude). So we do commonly say things like ‘big man’ or ‘funny man’ though not necessarily as one word (‘funnyman’ is one you may find has become more readily adopted, through frequent use). Otherwise we do have suffixes like ‘-ian’ or some specific ones like ‘-naut’ which refer to people doing a certain job/role, e.g. comedian, statistician, astronaut, but these generally relate to nouns rather than adjectives.
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