Question

Rewrite the following sentence using the noun form of the underlined word:
You begin to stagnate.

Answer 1

Hint: The underlined word is a verb. Verbs can be changed into nouns by adding a number of suffixes such as -ance (attend-attendance), -er (read-reader), -ance (accept-acceptance), -tion (educate-education), -age (pack-package), etc.

Complete answer:
The word ‘stagnate’ means to become unprogressive, that is, a person who stagnates does not make much progress in his life.
We can achieve the noun form of this word by adding the suffix -tion. Thus, the word becomes ‘stagnation’. Once we use the noun form, we have to omit the ‘to’ before the ‘stagnate’ in the sentence.
Thus, the correct sentence with the noun form of the word ‘stagnate’ is ‘You begin stagnation’.

Note: The list of suffixes to convert a verb to a noun is not absolute. We have to understand the context of a sentence to know whether a word is a verb or a noun.
For example, let us take the word ‘caution’. This word ends with -tion but it is also a verb. The meaning of this word depends upon the usage of the sentence. Caution as a verb means to warn someone. For example, the workers cautioned me about the road being under construction. Caution as a noun means steps taken by someone to avoid any danger. For example, Neha double-checked all the locks on the doors as a sign of caution. Thus, we should always check the context of the sentence to identify a word as a verb or a noun.