Nominalisation in written French: formation, complements and style

Compare “après que l’usine a fermé” with “après la fermeture de l’usine”. Both refer to the same closure, but package it differently: the first as a clause and the second as a noun phrase, a frequent choice in reports, headlines and exams.

Several suffix families are frequent: “-tion” —augmenter gives augmentation and réduire gives réduction—, “-ment” —développer gives développement—, “-age” —nettoyer gives nettoyage— and “-ure” —ouvrir gives ouverture and fermer gives fermeture. Nouns derived from adjectives also include “-té” and “-eur”, as in difficulté and lenteur; these are useful families, not an exhaustive inventory.

Suffix choice is not fully predictable. Patterns exist, but reliable production requires checking the attested noun and learning it with its gender: voler gives vol and recevoir gives réception. Analogy is a clue, not proof.

Nominalisation redistributes grammatical roles. The process becomes the noun-phrase head; a theme or complement often links with de —les prix ont augmenté → l’augmentation des prix— and an explicit agent may take par. Complements do not all transfer mechanically.

And a warning about style, because this tool can be overused: a text in which everything is a noun becomes unreadable. English bureaucratic writing has the same disease. It is a way of condensing when condensing helps, not a target — good French alternates the two.