Nouns

From Ial

Sapir, in Wanted, A World Language, pages 4-5, points out the ambiguity and difficulties deriving from making nouns out of a verb the English way.

Based on his consideration, I propose a more regular way to do this transformation. E.g. from to cut, instead of the English cut in the example sentence having a cut on the head, we should say cut-wound that is wound from cut-act. That is we attach a word to disambiguate, either a specific one (like wound, piece) or a generic one (act, result). So a cut of meat would be a cut-portion of meat.

As Sapir observed, we should avoid using unmodified verbs as noun because of their ambiguity and lack of uniformity. Other examples from the same source:

to kick a person to give someone a kick-act

to ride horseback to take a ride-act

I believe verbs are central in a language, so it makes sense to establish verbs first and then derive nouns from verbs. Using these compound-word mechanism that attaches a word giving the precise meaning of a noun seems the most convenient, regular and easy-to-learn way to do so.

E.g. obedience is defined in the Merriam-Webster as the act of obeying. That would be better expressed by the compound word: obey-act or using a genitive act of to obey. Another meaning of obedience is the quality or state of being obedient, while obedient is the adjective. Each meaning should be rendered using a separate paraphrase or compound word, so that it is clear to anyone knowing the meaning of constituents morphemes.