1. The zombie noun « functioning »

2. Example of mistake
Après avoir décrit quelques liens entre les volcans et les Hommes dans le chapitre précédent, nous allons ici changer de cadre et replacer les volcans dans le cadre du fonctionnement physique de notre planète
After describing some links between volcanos and humans in the previous chapter, we will change our perspective and study volcanoes as part of the physical process of our planet.

3. Nominalization or « creeping nounism »
Nominalization occurs when we turn a strong verb into a noun (usually a subject)
and plug in a weak verb for the missing strong verb.

4. Example of « creeping nounism »
An accreditation analysis was conducted of the performance level of the administration of the senior executive compensation disbursement mechanism

5. Forget nouns with suffixes
The suffixes –ion, -ism,-ment, -ness, -ance and –ence
NUMB the reader !
Use an energizing verb instead !

6. What happens to the sentence when you nominalize ? Only terrible things !
You may turn it into passive voice
Unnecessary words
To be verb as a main verb
Incoherence
You sound pompous and abstract
It impedes clear communication

7. Denominalizing helps us create sentences that are clear, concise and unified
Nominalization: The detective conducted an investigation of the crime. Concise Sentence: The detective investigated the crime.
Nominalization: The hope of the student is to earn good grades.
Concise Sentence: The student hopes to earn good grades.
Nominalization: There was flooding in the building by heavy rains.
Concise Sentence: Heavy rains flooded the building.

8. Also beware of zero derivation or conversion
Switching from verb to noun without adding a suffix
Do you have a solve for this problem ?
Let’s all focus on the build
That’s the take-away from today’s seminar
What’s the ask ?

9. Systran Links
Search on the page « Sentences » to see which translations appear with the word « fonctionnement »

10. Omission

11. Equivalence

12. Denominalization

13. Denominalization

14. Thank you for your attention !