1. Verbs converted from nouns (denominal verbs)

a) action characteristic of the object: ape - to ape;

b) instrumental use of the object: screw - to screw ('fasten with a screw');

c) acquisition or addition of the object: fish - to fish;

d) deprivation of the object: dust - to dust ('remove dust from something'), skin - to skin ('strip off the skin').

2. Nouns converted from verbs (deverbal substantives)

a) instance of the action: to jump -jump, to move - move;

b) agent of the action: to help - help 'a person who helps';

c) place of the action: to drive - drive 'a path or road along which one drives';

d) object or result of the action: to peel - peel 'the outer skin of fruit taken

off. Some other patterns of conversion can be mentioned.

3. Adjectives > Nouns: supernatural, impossible, inevitable;

4. Participle > Adjectives: a standing man / rule, running water. A diachronic survey of the present-day stock of conversion pairs reveals, that not all of them have been created on the semantic patterns just given. Some of them arose: (1) as a result of the loss of endings in the course of the historical developments of the English language due to which nouns and verbs became identical in form, as love, hate, rest, smell, work, end, answer, care, drink', (2) borrowing from other languages of words of the same root, belonging in the source language to different parts of speech, but due to phonological and graphical assimilation lost their affixes:

check, cry, doubt, change.

Some linguists (Smimitsky, Arbekova) consider them to be the result of patterned homonymy.

Word-composition (compounding)

Compound words are words consisting of at least two stems which occur in the language as free forms (blackbird, doghouse, blue-green). Compounding is highly productive in English. It can be found in nouns (doorstop), adjectives (winedark), and verbs (stagemanage) - nouns are by far the most common type of compounds.

Among noun compounds the following types can be found:

N+N>N (steamboat)

V+N>N (crybaby)

Adj+N>N (strongbox).

Compound adjectives are of the type:

Adj.+Adj.>Adj. (red-hot)

N+Adj.>Adj. (bloodthirsty)

N+V>Adj. (snow-covered).

The constituent members of a compound are not always equal. Some compounds are made up of a determining (basic part = determinatum) and a determined part (serves to differentiate the basic part = determinant). Thus, in steam in steamboat , red in red-hot are determinants, because steamboat is a type of boat, red-hot is a degree ofhotness.

When the meaning of the compound can be inferred from its parts it is called transparent (hairbrush, bedroom, dancing-hall) and non-transparent or idiomatic, when it cannot be inferred from the meaning of components (blackboard, lazybones, football).

Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between a compound and a word-combination. In this case the following criteria can be useful.

1) Graphic - solid or hyphenated spelling. It is not sufficient, because different dictionaries give different spelling: airline, air-line, air line.

2) Phonological - stress. There is a tendency to stress the first element of the compound ('ice-cream - compound and 'ice 'cream - free phrase), but this rule does not hold with adjectives ('gray-'green, easy-going). Besides, the stress can differentiate the meaning of the compounds: man'kind "the human race" and 'mankind "men contrasted with women".

3) Semantic - seems more reliable for it defines a compound as a combination forming a unit expressing a single idea which is not identical in meaning to the sum of the meanings of its components in a free phrase. Tallboy does not even denote a person, but a piece of furniture, a chest of drawers supported by a low stand. Yet the semantic criterion alone cannot prove anything as phraseological units also convey a single concept.

4) Morphological and 5) syntactic criteria can be applied to compound words in order to distinguish them from word-group. In the word-group a tall boy its constituents are open to grammatical changes: They were the tallest boys in their class. Between the constituent parts other words can be inserted: a tall handsome boy. The compound are not subject to such changes. No word can be inserted and the plural form ending is added to the whole unit. All this leads us to the conclusion that, in most cases, only several criteria can convincingly classify a lexical unit as either a compound word or a word group.

There is also a problem in distinguishing a compound from a derivative, when the unit has such elements as -man (chairman), mini- (mini-skirt), -land (wonderland), -like (ladylike), -proof (fireproof), -worthy (trustworthy). They are called semi-affixes.

Shortening

While derivation and compounding represent addition, shortening, on the other hand, may be represented as subtraction, in which part of word or word group is taken away. It differs from derivation, composition and conversion in being not a new arrangement of existing morphemes, but often a source of new ones.

Clipping is a process whereby a new word is created by shortening a polysyllabic word. According to what part is cut off we distinguish final, initial and medial clipping. This process, which seems very popular among students, has yielded forms such asproffoT professor, ad for advertisement, poli-sci for political science, phys-ed for physical education. A number of such abbreviations have been accepted in general use: doc, auto, lab, sub, bike, pom, condo, prep. The most common abbreviations occur in names - such as Liz, Ron, Lyn.

Blending is combining parts of two words to form one. Well-known examples of blends include motel from motor hotel, brunch from breakfast and lunch, selectric from select and electric, dancercise from dance and exercise, dramedy from comedy and tragedy. Sometimes only the first word is clipped, as in perma-press for 'permanent-press'.

Back-formation is a process whereby a word whose form is. similar to that of a derived form undergoes a process of deaffixation, i.e. the singling-out of a stem from a word which is wrongly regarded as a derivative. Resurrect was originally formed in this way from resurrection. Other back-formations in English include enthuse from enthusiasm, donate from donation, and orient from orientation. A major source of back-formation in English has been words that end with -er or -or and have meanings involving the notion of an agent, such as editor, peddler, swindler, and stroker. Because hundreds of words ending in these affixes are the result of affixation, it was assumed that these words too had been formed by adding -er or -or to a verb. By the process of back-formation, this led to the conclusion that edit, peddle, swindle, and stroke exist as simple verbs.

Abbreviation is the process and the result of forming a word out of the initial elements (letters, morphemes) of a word combination, (a) If the abbreviated written form is read like a word it is called an acronym - AIDS, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), radar for radio detecting and ranging, (b) The other subgroup of abbreviations is pronounces like a series of letters - S.O.S., NFL (National Football League), B.B.C. (the British Broadcasting Corporation), (c) The term abbreviation may be used for a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in a text for economy of space and effort (graphic abbreviation) - L.A., N.Y., B.A. for Bachelor of Arts, ltd for limited, Xmas for Christmas.

Sound interchange may be defined as an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alternation in phonemic composition of the root. The change may effect the root vowel: food N - feed V, root consonant: speak V -speech N, or both: life N - live V. It also may be combined with affixation: strong Adj. - strength N, or with affixation and shift of stress: 'democrat - de'mocracy.

Distinctive stress : 'conduct N - con'duct V, object, etc.

Sound imitation is the formation of new words from sounds that resemble those associated with the object or action to be named, or that seem suggestive of its qualities. Examples of onomatopoeic words include buzz, hiss, sizzle, cuckoo.