Adverbs in English
Share In this post we will look at how we use adverbs in English. We also have a post on adverb suffixes. In English, adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or
Nominalisationdescribes a word formation in which a verb (or other part of speech) is used as (or transformed into) a noun.
We’ll take a look at why we use them and why these noun forms can be useful in formal writing.
When we use verb forms it makes the language more immediate, easier to understand, and often less formal.
By using the noun form instead, we can make we what we say or write a lot more formal.
Let’s look at an example
What we can see from these examples is that the focus is different in each. Sentence 1 focuses on the action, whereas our second example emphasises the activity or noun.
In this respect the use of the noun form is similar to why we use the passive form, in order to focus on the action.
There are a number of reasons why we usenominalisations.
To avoid mentioning the agent, as we do with the passive.
It allows us to change the focus of the sentence, as new important information is usually placed at the beginning of the sentence.
Commonly, we are are looking at more than a simple verb -> noun change. Noun phrases are also used as a form of nominalisation.
A noun phrase is a group of two or more words headed by a noun that includes modifiers. Just as nouns can act as subjects, objects, and prepositional objects, the same applies to noun phrases.
Examples
Noun phrases can be very useful as they allow us to reduce extended information to a single more precise and often more elegant idea.
Compare the original information below with the modified version which use noun phrases.
In all three examples the use of a noun structure has made the meaning very clear and produced shorter, more precise sentences.
Take a look at other topics in our C1 Advanced English Corner. Read aboutusing inversion forms for formal writing and how we can use cause and reason expressions to improve writing.
Share In this post we will look at how we use adverbs in English. We also have a post on adverb suffixes. In English, adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or
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