this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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Word for a specific way we noun our verbs? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/linguistics@mander.xyz
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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/33025461

I'm doing some conlanging for a book and I'm having trouble finding the word for how we can take a verb, add -er at the end, and get a word for a person who does that thing. For example, a driver is someone who drives, a commander is someone who commands, a lawyer is someone who laws, and a finger is someone who fings. I am having trouble finding out how other languages noun their verbs in this way since I don't know what this thing is called. Pls halp.

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[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 18 points 6 days ago

The process is called "agentive nominalisation", and the resulting noun an "agent noun".

From what I've seen most languages with the concept of agent noun do it like English does: start with the verb, remove any potential verb-exclusive affix, add a specific affix for agent nouns. That seems to hold true even for non-IE languages; see Old Tupi and Cebuano. However there are plenty twists you can add to that, for the sake of conlanging:

  • It doesn't need to be after the root. A prefix, infix, or circumfix is fine too.
  • You could have multiple affixes instead, either for different semantic purposes or different phonetic environments. (I think Irish does the later.)
  • As typical for affixes they can also interact with the root; for example Old Tupi does this, if you plop that -sar (agent noun former) into the verb aûsub "to love", the result is not *aûsubsar as you'd expect, but aûsupara (I think /bs/→/p/?)
  • Something akin to Arabic vowel alternations seems realistic IMO. Or even consonant mutations.
  • Instead of an affix, a separated word. It would be like saying "drive doer" in English, instead of "driver".
[–] GandalftheBlack@feddit.org 7 points 6 days ago

I don't know the specific name for this process, but the general term is derivation. A suffix added to a word which changes its meaning is derivational morphology (this is opposed to inflectional morphology, which is grammatical. So -er in driver is derivational, but the -s in drivers is inflectional) A noun which is made by adding -er to a verb is an agent noun, and a noun which is formed by adding derivational morphology to a verb is a deverbal (and the inverse is a denominal). Hope you find this helpful!

[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Spanish is not so different:

cocinero - cook from cocina - kitchen ie. "kitchener"

mesero - waiter from mesa - table ie. "tabler"

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Romance languages are really messy in this aspect, and there are multiple competing suffixes:

  • -dor; see amar→amador, hablar→hablador(a). The OG agentive nominaliser, in Latin it was -tor/-tōrem. Eventually it got a feminine version, as Spanish -dora.
  • -triz; the original feminine of the above, from Latin -trix/-trīcem. I think it isn't productive any more.
  • -nte; see amar→amante, hablar→hablante. From Latin present active participles, like -āns/-antem. Originally it was a way to handle the verb as an agent adjective, and more conservative grammars still describe it only like this, but neither Latin nor the Romance languages care too much about the distinction between noun and adjective, so... so yeah.
  • -ero/-era, the one you listed. From Latin -ārius/-ārium, -āria/-āriam, -ārium/-ārium. Originally it formed nouns from adjectives, and rarely from other nouns (X-arium = "where you keep X"). People started spamming it in other parts of speech.

I listed them as in Spanish but in the others it's the same deal. And the confusing part is that there's always some subtle semantic distinction; for example an hablador is someone who's talkative, but an hablante is whoever is speaking.

[–] mapto@masto.bg 2 points 6 days ago (2 children)

@lvxferre @Nemo so how is the distinction from the last paragraph communicated in a supposedly non-messy language?

[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 7 points 6 days ago

If you find a non-messy language, let me know.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 6 days ago

I see two ways to do so:

  1. Have multiple agent noun affixes, each for a type of agent. For example I feel like Spanish -dor is more often used for someone who's repeatedly doing something, while -nte is someone doing it now.
  2. Apply the affix not to the base form of the verb, but to a conjugated form, in a way that preserves tense/aspect/mood information.

So, as an example of #2. Let's say your conlang has the verb "lug" (to do), and here's part of its conjugation:

  • indicative perfect past - lugene (they did)
  • indicative imperfect past - lugavo (they were doing)
  • indicative habitual present - lugien (they often do, they typically do)
  • indicative progressive present - lug (they're currently doing)
  • [etc.]

And your agent suffix is, dunno, -bor. Most languages would apply it into the base form and call it a day, so you'd get "lugbor"; you could instead do something like

  • lugenebor - the one who did
  • lugavobor - the one who used to do
  • lugienbor - the one who often does; like Spanish "hablador" (one who talks often = talkative)
  • lugbor - the one actively doing it; like Spanish "hablante" (one who's talking now = speaker)
  • etc.

I feel this would go well with an agglutinative language. Just make sure the distinction between adjective and noun is clear, otherwise your conspeakers will conflate the nominalising and adjectivising suffixes.

[–] boydster@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Nounification at first guess?

Looking if up, I was close. The word is nominalization, but nounification has also been used.

Edit: sources
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nominalization
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nounification