In this, the third High English grammar quiz on nominalisation, as in the previous quiz we continue with the rules of grammar when nominalising adjectives into nouns.
We have seen how adjectives describe nouns. These are helpful in providing more information about the subject we are describing. If my friend has lots of wealth, probably, I would call him a rich friend. Here, we note that a friend is described as ‘rich’ and this provides much more information than just ‘friend.’ ‘Rich’ is an adjective. There are many other adjectives: 'friendly', 'happy', 'slim', 'old', 'rough', 'soft', not to mention all the colours, 'red', 'orange', 'yellow', 'green' 'blue', 'black', 'white', 'brown', 'purple' etc... All of these words we use to describe people, places or things are adjectives.
Adjectives are categorised into various types, such as adjectives of quantity and adjectives of comparison. We also have possessive adjectives and demonstrative adjectives. Sometimes, as we saw in the previous quiz, we can use some adjectives in a slightly different way by modifying them to become nouns. When we do this we are nominalising them.
Adjectives can be modified into nouns by adding suffixes just as we did with verbs. Sometimes more than one suffix can be added to the adjective. For instance, words such as ‘sensitive’ can be nominalised to form ‘sensitivity’ by adding the suffix ‘-ity’ with modifications or ‘sensitiveness’ by adding the suffix ‘-ness.’
We also have what are known as zero-derivation adjectives where the base form of the adjective is also used as a nominalised adjective to perform the functions of a noun. For instance, ‘destitute’ is an adjective and it can perform the functions of a noun, as in this sentence:
‘In the year 2013 the city had a large number of destitute children and in 2014 the number of destitutes went up significantly.’
Here the adjective ‘destitute’ is used as a noun in the latter part of the sentence. This aspect of adjectives is common with those that indicate a collective group. Words in this category include 'poor', 'blind' and 'deaf'. Of course, 'blind' and 'deaf' can also have 'blindness' and 'deafness' as the nominalised forms. Take this quiz and learn the rules of grammar to follow when nominalising adjectives into nouns.