Historically, grammarians have described a verbal noun or gerundial noun as a verb form that functions as a noun. An example of a verbal noun in English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The ''sacking'' of the city was an epochal event" (wherein ''sacking'' is a gerund form of the verb ''sack''). A verbal noun, as a type of nonfinite verb form, is a term that some grammarians still use when referring to

gerund In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ger) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, it is one that functions as a noun. The name is derived from Late Latin ''gerundium,'' meaning "which is ...

s, gerundives, supines, and nominal forms of

infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs that do not show a tense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all ...

s. In English however, ''verbal noun'' has most frequently been treated as a synonym for ''gerund''. Aside from English, the term ''verbal noun'' may apply to: * the citation form of verbs such as the masdar in Arabic and the verbal noun (''berfenw'') in Welsh * declinable verb forms in Mongolian that can serve as predicates, comparable to

participle In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...

s but with a larger area of syntactic use

Types

Verbal nouns, whether derived from verbs or constituting an infinitive, behave syntactically as grammatical objects or grammatical subject. They may also be used as count nouns and pluralized but cannot be inflected vis-a-vis a given grammatical person. In English, gerunds used as verbal nouns comprise the suffix ''-ing''. Examples of such uses are given below: :: Killing the president was an atrocious crime. :: He was chastised for not leaving a tip for the server. :: Creating a backup file might be a good idea. :: Thanks for giving us a heads-up. Infinitives used as verbal nouns generally occur as prefaced by the particle ''to'': :: To be or not to be is the question. :: To become a U.S. president, one must be a natural born U.S. citizen. :: Try to stay calm. :: Finding time to exercise requires proper planning. Infinitives used as verbal nouns may not be prefaced by the particle ''to'', however, when elided via

ellipsis The ellipsis (, plural ellipses; from , , ), rendered , alternatively described as suspension points/dots, points/periods of ellipsis, or ellipsis points, or colloquially, dot-dot-dot,. According to Toner it is difficult to establish when t ...

: :: Having proper contacts might help you (to) get the job. :: They couldn't help but (to) notice and (to) snicker at the wardrobe malfunction. Verbs also may be nominalized through derivational processes, such as suffixes (as in ''discovery'' from the verb ''discover'') or by simple conversion (as with the noun ''love'' from the verb ''love''). The formation of such deverbal nouns is not generally a productive process, that is, it cannot be indiscriminately applied to form nouns from any verb (for example, there is no noun *''uncovery'' for the verb ''uncover''). When they exist, such deverbal nouns often tend to replace the regularly formed verbal noun (as ''discovery'' is usually used rather than ''discovering'', although the latter is still common as a gerund), or else a differentiation in meaning becomes established.

Notes

{{Authority control Nouns by type