Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

33%
+0 −2
Q&A How do Latin etymons that end in English in *-tion* nearly always name a process?

I don't think the emboldening is correct, because -ing gerunds name a process. See https://english.stackexchange.com/a/444498. -tion just names a result of that process. What do you think?      ...

0 answers  ·  posted 3y ago by PSTH‭

Question Latin
#1: Initial revision by user avatar PSTH‭ · 2021-03-13T05:58:42Z (about 3 years ago)
How do Latin etymons that end in English in *-tion* nearly always name a process?
I don't think the emboldening is correct, because [*-ing* gerunds](https://english.stackexchange.com/a/314335) name a process. See https://english.stackexchange.com/a/444498. *-tion* just names a result of that process. What do you think? 

>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; In English and many other languages the word for transla-
tion is a two-headed beast. ‘A translation’ names a product
– any work translated from some other language; whereas
‘translation’, without an article, names a process – the process
by which ‘a translation’ comes to exist. This kind of double
meaning is not a problem for speakers of languages that pos-
sess regular sets of terms referring both to a process and to
the product of that process (as do most Western European
languages). Speakers of English, French and so forth are quite
accustomed to negotiating such duplicity and can play games 

Page 21

>with it, as when they say *walk the walk* and *talk the talk*. More
specifically, **words derived from Latin that end in English in
*-tion* nearly always name a process** and a result of that process:
‘abstraction’ (the process of abstracting something) alongside
‘an abstraction’, ‘construction’ (the business of building struc-
tures) alongside ‘a construction’ (something built), and so on.
In a related kind of word-use, the teacher of a cordon bleu
cookery lesson hardly needs to explain that the French use the
word cuisine to name the place where food is prepared (the
kitchen) and the results of such preparation (*haute cuisine*,
*cuisine bourgeoise*, etc.). 

Page 22

[David Bellos gained his doctorate in French literature from Oxford University (UK) and taught subsequently at Edinburgh, Southampton and Manchester before coming to Princeton in 1997.](https://fit.princeton.edu/people/david-bellos). [*Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything*](https://cdn.waterstones.com/special/pdf/9780241954300.pdf)