• Derivative Compounds:

Kind-hearted, mill-owner

Teenager = N + (N + er)

• Compound Derivatives:

Long-legged

Schoolboyishness (N + N) + ish + ness

New Productive Patterns

N+Prep.	V+Prep.	N1+Prep.+N2
in head-on spot-on by-election off-hour off-key by-way	up–country after–game off–street by–line after–life at–home talk teach ……	man–of-war mother–in-law air-to-air day-to-day house-to-house
Prep+Article+N	V+Prep+N	Adv+Perp+N
off-the at-a-boy rack self job cuff	a stay-at-home	back-to-work
Prep+P I	Prep+Ner	Prep+Prep+N
in-fighting	on-stander off-stander	off-off-Broadway

“The STONE WALL problem”

A compound or a syntactically free phrase (cannon ball, rose garden)?

What is a wall – a noun or an adjective?

No consistency in spelling: arm-chair and arm chair; dish-cloth and dish cloth.

R. Quirk – correlation with the of-phrase: a dish cloth – a cloth for dishes.

H. Marchand – `stone` wall (a two-stressed combination),

singularization (billiards but billiard-room).

The contextual criterion – a complex used attributively before a third noun makes it a compound, especially with neologisms: “I telephoned: no air-hostess trainees had been kept late” (Fowles).

Nominal phrases and nominal compounds are correlated, they are semantically derivable. “We’ve done last-minute changes before” (Priestley).

Quotation compounds or holophrasis: the let-sleeping-dogs-lie approach, keep-your-distance chilliness – Phrase-formative device (L. Bloomfield).

Conversion:

OUTLINE

1. Conversion as a way of word building.

2. Different points of view on the nature of conversion.

3. Semantic groups of verbs which can be converted from nouns.

4. The meanings of verbs converted from adjectives.

5. Semantic groups of nouns which can be converted from verbs.

6. Substantivized adjectives.

7. Characteristic features of combinations of the type «stone wall».

8. Semantic groups of combinations of this type.

«If ifs and ands were pots and pans» (proverb).

«If anybody oranges me again tonight, I’ll knock his face off» (O’Henry)

The process of coining new words in a different part of speech and with a different distribution characteristic but without adding any derivative element so that the basic form of the original and of a derived words are homonymous (I.V. Arnold)

Synonyms:

Zero Derivation

Root Formation

Transposition

Functional change

Conversion

Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English word-building system. It is also called non-affixal derivation or zero-suffixation. The term «conversion» first appeared in the book by Henry Sweet «New English Grammar» in 1891. Conversion is treated differently by different scientists.

Prof. A.I. Smirntitsky treats conversion as a morphological way of forming words when one part of speech is formed from another part of speech by changing its paradigm, e.g. the verb «to dial» from the noun «dial»: the paradigm of the noun (a dial,dials) is changed for the paradigm of a regular verb (I dial, he dials, dialled, dialling).

A. Marchand in his book «The Categories and Types of Present-day English» treats conversion as a morphological-syntactical word-building because it is not only the change of the paradigm, but also the change of the syntactic function, e.g. I need some good paper for my room. But I paper my room every year. (The verb «paper» is the predicate in the sentence).

Conversion is the main way of forming verbs in Modern English. Verbs can be formed from nouns of different semantic groups and have different meanings, e.g.

a) verbs have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting parts of a human body e.g. to eye, to finger, to elbow, to shoulder etc. They have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting tools, machines, instruments, weapons, e.g. to hammer, to machine-gun, to rifle, to nail,

b) an action characteristic of the living being denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to crowd, to wolf, to ape,

c) acquisition, addition or deprivation if they are formed from nouns denoting an object, e.g. to fish, to dust, to peel, to paper,

d) an action performed at the place denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to park, to garage, to bottle, to corner, to pocket,

e) an action performed at the time denoted by the noun from which they have been converted e.g. to winter, to week-end .