18. Conversion. Different views on conversion. Semantic relations within converted pairs.

Conversion (zero derivation, affixless derivation) is the formation of words without using specific word-building affixes.

The term conversion was introduced by Henry Sweet in his New English Grammar. First cases of conversion registered in the 14th c. imitated such pairs of words as love, n – love, v (O.E. lufu, n – lufian, v) for they were numerous and thus were subconsciously accepted as one of the typical language patterns.

Approaches to the study of conversion:

-conversion as a morphological way of forming words (Prof. Smirnitskiy);

-conversion as a morphological-syntactic word-building means (Prof. Arnold);

-conversion as a syntactic word-building means (a functional approach).

The productivity of conversion:

-the analytical structure of Modern English;

-the simplicity of paradigms of English parts of speech;

-the regularity and completeness with which converted units develop a paradigm of their new category of part of speech;

-the flexibility of the English vocabulary makes a word formed by conversion capable of further derivation, e.g. affixation (to view > a view > a viewer, viewing), word-composition (a black ball > to blackball, a black list > to blacklist).

Criteria for establishing the directionality of conversion:

historical, e.g. crowd, v (O.E. crudan ‘to press, to hasten, to drive’, 937 AD) > crowd, n ‘a compressed mass of people or things’ 16th c. > ‘any mass of people’;

semantic, i.e. the converted word should be semantically more complex than the base word from which it is derived or is semantically dependent on the latter, e.g. bottle, n > bottle, v; better, adj – better, v;

morphological, i.e. in a homonymous verb-noun pair, the regularly inflected form is derived from the irregularly inflected one, e.g. drink, v > drink, n; sleep, v > sleep, n;

phonetic, i.e. in a homonymous verb-noun pair a stress-shift indicates a derived word, e.g. extráct, v – éxtract, n; pùsh úp, v - púsh-up, n;

frequency of occurrence, i.e. being semantically more complex, derived words have a narrower range of meaning to the effect that they cannot be used in as many contexts as their base words, e.g. water, n > water, v.

Semantic Relations in Conversion

1.Verbs converted from nouns (denominal verbs) denote:

-action characteristic of the object, e.g. dog (n) – to dog (v);

-instrumental use of the object, e.g. screw (n) – to screw (v);

-acquisition or addition of the object, e.g. fish (n) – to fish (v);

-time, e.g. winter (n) – winter (v);

-deprivation of the object, e.g. dust (n) – dust (v).

2.Nouns converted from verbs (deverbial nouns) denote:

-instance or process of the action, e.g. dance (v) – dance (n);

-agent of the action, e.g. help (v) – help (n);

-place of action, e.g. walk (v) – walk (n);

-object or result of the action, e.g. peel (v) – peel (n).

Other Ways of Conversion

Adjective > Noun, e.g. a bitter, a wet, a regular etc.;

Adjective > Verb, e.g. to dirty, to calm, to empty etc.;

Noun > Adjective, e.g. a stone wall, a cotton cloth etc.;

Modal verb > Noun, e.g. a must;*

Function word > Noun, e.g. too many ifs and buts;

Function word > Verb, e.g. to down, to up etc.;

Affix > Noun, e.g. There are too many ologies and emes in his report.