Jan,         

 

A wise practice.  I always follow it.

 

Best!

 

Herb

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jan Kammert
Sent: 2008-02-12 22:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: tion & nouns

 

Thanks for this information. 

I think that when people say "always" or "never" I doubt them. 

That's probably just as well.

 

 

-------------- Original message ----------------------

From: "STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask]>

> 

> Jan,

>

> The statement isn't far from true.  Etymologically, -tion is a compound

> suffix, combining the Latin participial suffix -t and the Latin

> nominalizing suffix -ion-.  In English, which suffix a word has is

> pretty much of function of that word's etymology, and there is no

> difference in meaning between them.

>

> As to whether there are verbs in -ion or -tion, there are.  Three that

> come to mind immediately are "fashion", "ration," and "station."  Given

> the ease with which English grammar shifts nouns to verbs, giving rise

> even to the somewhat overstated maxim "Every noun can be verbed," I

> wouldn't be surprised to find a lot more instances.  "Fashion," by the

> way, was borrowed from French in the 15th c.  French had inherited it

> from Latin "factio," genitive "factionis," and had lost the <i> from

> it's spelling before English borrowed the word.  This suggests that by

> the time English borrowed the word, French grammar no longer treated it

> as containing a suffix.  The <i> in the English form may represent an

> analogy to the spelling of other words ending in the same phonetic

> syllable.  That letter appears first in the 16th c. and the <-shi->

> spelling doesn't appear till the 17th.

>

> Etymology, by the way, is a tricky and precise historical discipline,

> and etymology works on specific words rather than on classes of words.

> The fact that -t-ion- was a productive derivation in Latin doesn't mean

> that it necessarily remains so in the languages that borrow it.

> Languages tend to borrow words as whole units without the morphology

> they may have in the source language.  So -tion and -ion forms shouldn't

> be expected to behave consistently in English.

>

> Herb

>

> I teach middle school.  One of the teachers in my district (not my

> building) said that all words that end in -tion are nouns.  I never

> heard that before, but I thought of all the words I could that end in

> -tion.  I think he might be right.

>

> Then I thought maybe all words that end in just -ion are nouns.  Am I

> right?  Maybe this information will help my students, but I don't want

> to tell them something wrong.

>

> If all words that end is -ion are nouns, can someone tell me why?  Is

> there some history about those words?

> Thanks!

> Jan

>

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