Nominalisation mechanics — The Grammar That Governs
Grammar: Nominalisation
Free ESL grammar exercise on nominalisation mechanics themed around the grammar that governs. Printable worksheet from EnglishPlans.com.
What's on this worksheet
A Level 6 (proficiency) ESL grammar exercise on society, practising nominalisation. The worksheet has a short reading excerpt, a grammar reference and graded practice items.
From the reading
Version B replaces both verbs with derivational nominals — decision (from decide), deterioration (from deteriorate), governance (from govern), provision (from provide) — and deploys four attributive modifiers to build a noun phrase of nine words where a single verb once stood. Lexical density rises from 38% to 61%. Syntactic compression is the mechanism: argument structure shrinks as the verb's subject, object, and complements collapse into a single noun phrase.
Grammar: Nominalisation
- Verb → Noun derivation
- The government decided → The government's decision — suffix ‑ion strips tense, agency, and assigns a possessive determiner
- Gerund nominal
- The governing of public institutions remains contested. — process treated as an entity; no named actor required
Sample items
- The government ______ (decide) to increase taxes shocked opposition parties.
- The ______ (just) of the sentence was questioned by human rights organisations across three continents.
- ______ (govern) public utilities without transparency leads to significant erosion of public trust.
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