4. Conversion

The process of coining a new word in a different part of speech but without adding any de­rivative element, so that the basic form of the original and the basic form of the derived words are homonymous, is called con­version. The other terms are zero derivation, root formation or functional change.

The phenomenon has been treated differently by different scholars. The term conversion appeared in 1891 in H. Sweet`s “New English Grammar”[].The essence of the phenomenon lies in the fact that the word paper exists in the English -language as a noun, and a verb may be formed from the same stem without changing the stem in any way, so that both forms are homonymous. Their distribution on the other hand is quite different: I need some paper. I papered my room. The verb paper takes the functional verbal suffix -ed and occupies the position of a verbal pred­icate. Italso has the lexico-grammatical meaning of a verb. The difference between paper n and paper v is morphological, syntactic and semantic: the origi­nal and the resulting word are grammatically different; a new paradigm is acquired and the syntactic functions and ties are those of a verb.

Conversion is also called zero derivation, root formation and functional change.

Conversion is productive in English. The main reason for it is the absence of formal signs marking the part of speech to which the word belongs.

The problem of conversion is considered differently from the synchronic and diachronic approach. Diachronically the causes that made conversion so widely spread are the following. Nouns and verbs have become identical in form firstly as a result of the loss of endings. When endings disappeared phonetical development resulted in the merging of sound forms for both elements:OE: carian v.-caru n.– ME.:care v.n.; OE: drincan v. – drinca n.- ME. drink.

A similar homonymy resulted in the borrowing from French of numer­ous pairs of words of the same root but belonging in French to different parts of speech. These words lost affixes and became phonetically identical in the process of assimilation:OFr: crier v- cri -ME: cry v,n.

Conversion in present-day English

Recent research suggests that shows that conversion regularly involves monosyllabic words of a simple morphological structure.

Conversion from suffixed and prefixed words is possible, butuncommon: commission - to commission. It can be explained by the fact that a derivative divisible word is a member of certain structural correlation and there is no point in forming a verb from the noun, e.g. arrival by conversion when there exists a verb of the same root, arrive.

Conversion is considered to be the predominant method of English verb-formation. Verbs are mostly formed from nouns hammer –to hammer, sometimes from adverbs and rarely from adjectives: down - to down,, and interjections pooh-pooh - to pooh-pooh. Occasional nonce-words are also formed in this way. These patterns is highly productive and many neologisms appear, e.g. to chair – “to preside over a meeting”.

Conversion has been treated differently. Prof. A. I. Smirnitsky considers the paradigm to be the only word-forming means in conversion. He sees conversion as a case where a word is transferred from one paradigm to another and the paradigm is the only means at work. I.V. Arnold critizes this view as it ignores the syntactic pattern which is very important. A. Marchand in his book “The Categories and Types of Present-day English” treats conversion as a morphological-syntactical word-building because not only the paradigm but also the function of the word in the sentence (syntactic function) changes.

In the example about “paper”: I need some good paper. I papered my room we see the difference: paper-a noun because it occupies the posi­tion of a noun and possesses the syntactical ties of a noun (it is modified by an adjective). If we take paper in the meaning “газета” we can find the indefinite article or put it in the plural form.

I.V.Arnold supports A. Marchnd`s point of view and says that it is impossible to identify the paradigm in the isolated form. Having the form papers one cannot say whether it is the plural of a noun or the third person singular (Pr. Ind.) of a verb. Thus, even the paradigm can be recognized only on the evidence of distribu­tion. She adds that if the paradigm is accepted as the only word-building means in conversion, it means that conversion does not exist for the parts of speech where either the prototype or the de­rived word possess no paradigm: must v —must n why adv —why particle; down adv —down adj.

Semantic relations in conversion

There are some patterned re­lationships in conversion.

1) The lexical meaning of the verb points out the instrument, the agent, the place, the cause, the result and time of action.

Verbs based on nouns denoting some part of the human body will show a regularity of instrumental meaning, e. g. to eye – “to watch carefully (with eyes)”; to finger – “to touch with the fingers”; to hand – “to give or help with the hand”; to elbow – “to push or force one's way with the elbows”.

The same type of instrumental relations will be noted in stems denot­ing various tools, machines and weapons: to hammer, to knife, to ma­chine-gun, to pivot, to pump, to sandpaper, to saw, to spur.

Sometimes the noun names the agent of the action expressed in the verb, the action being characteristic of what is named by the noun: to crowd – “to come together in large numbers”, to flock – “to gather in flocks”.

The group of verbs based on the names of animals may be called meta­phorical, as their meaning implies comparison. e.g. to dog – “to follow close behind as a dog does”, to monkey – “mimick, to wolf (down) – “to eat quickly”.

Resultative relations can be found with the formulas: “to hunt some animal' and 'to give birth to some animal”, e.g. to fox, to rabbit, to rat.

With nouns denoting places, buildings, containers and the like the meaning of the converted verb will be locative: to bag – “to put in a bag”, to bottle – “to store in bottles”, to can – “to put into cans”, to corner – “to set in a corner”.

Verbs with adjective stems, such as to blind, to calm, to clean, to empty show regular semantic relationships with the corres­ponding adjectives.

2) Deverbal nouns formed by conversion fall mostly under the categories of process, result, place or agent, e.g. the name the process, the act or a specific instance of what the verbal stem expresses: to go- go; to hiss –hiss; to hunt-hunt; the result or the object of the verbal action is denoted in such nouns as burn, catch, cut, find, lift, offer, tear. The place of action is named by the nouns drive, stand, walk etc.

H. Marchand points out that the deverbal personal nouns formed by means of conversion and denoting the doer are mostly derogatory, e.g. scold – “a scolding woman”, tease – “a person who teases”. It shows that the language has some pat­terned morphological ways to convey emotional meaning; these ways can form a parallel to the suffixes denoting deprecation, such as -ard, -ster. Such words often display emotional colouring, give a jocular ring to the utterance or sound as colloquialisms: "Don't bossy me”.

Conversion and other types of word-formation

The flexibility of the English vocabulary system makes a word formed by conversion capable of further derivation. It takes not only functional but also derivational af­fixes characteristic of a verbal stem, and becomes distributionally equiv­alent to it: to view – “to watch television” gives: unviewable, viewer, viewing.

Conversion may be combined with other word-building processes, e.g. composition: to blacklist. , to stonewall; nonce-words can be also formed: to my-dear, to my-love, to blue-pencil.

There is a special very productive pattern is a combined effect of composition and conversion. It forms nouns out of phrasal verbs. The noun stem obtains phonetical and graphical integrity and indivisibility absent in the verb-group, because of solid or hyphenated spelling and single stress e.g. to draw back - a drawback, look-out, lookout, make-up – makeup.