4. Write about conversion and suggest the parts of speech especially affected by conversion.

Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English word-building system. It is also called affixless derivation or zero-suffixation. Conversion is treated differently by different scientists, e.g. prof. A.I.Smirnitsky 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. to form the verb “to dial” from the noun “dial” we change the paradigm of the noun (a dial, dials) for the paradigm of a regular verb (I dial, he dials, dialed).

Marchant treats conversion as a morphological-syntactical word-building because we have 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. I paper my room every year.

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 because of that, 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 shoulder. They have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting tools, machines, instruments, weapons, e.g. to hammer, to rifle, to nail

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

d) verbs can denote 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 pocket, to corner

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

Nouns can also be formed by means of conversion from verbs. Converted nouns can denote:

a) instant of an action, e.g. a jump, a move

b) process or state, e.g. sleep, walk

c) agent of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a help, a scold

d) object or result of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a burn, a find, a purchase

e) place of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a drive, a stop, a walk

5. Evaluate the problems of terms.

There are several controversial problems in the field of terminology.

1) whether a term loses its terminological status when it comes into common usage. Under the circumstances numerous terms pass into general usage without losing connection with their specific fields.

2) there are linguists in whose opinion terms are only those words which have retained their exclusiveness and are not known or recognized outside their specific sphere.

3) according to some linguists, an ideal term should be monosemantic. Polysemantic terms may lead to misunderstanding and that is a serious problem in professional communication.

Being mostly independent of the context a term can have no contextual meaning whatever. The only meaning possible is a denotational free meaning. No emotional colouring or evaluation are possible when the term is used within its proper sphere. A term can obtain a figurative or emotionally coloured meaning only when takes out of its sphere and used in literary or colloquial speech.