34. Productivity if conversion. Occasional conversion.

Conversion is restricted both semantically and morphologically.

With reference to semantic restrictions it is assumed that all verbs can be divided into two groups: a) verbs denoting processes that can be represented as a succession of isolated actions from which nouns are easily formed, e.g. fall v — fall n; run v — run n; jump v — jump n, etc.; b) verbs like to sit, to lie, to stand denoting processes that cannot be represented as a succession of isolated actions.It is extremely difficult to distinguish between these two groups. This can be exemplified in such pairs as to invite — an invite, to take — a take, to sing — a sing, to bleed — a bleed, to win — a win, etc. The possibility for the verbs to be formed from nouns through conversion seems to be illimitable.

The morphological restrictions.Complexity of word-structure does not favour conversion. It is significant that in MnE. there are no verbs converted from nouns with the suffixes -ing and -ation. This restriction is balanced by occasional conversion pairs of rather complex structure, e.g. to package, to holiday, to wireless, to petition, to reverence, etc.

The English word-stock contains a great many words formed by means of conversion in different periods of its history. There are cases of traditional and occasional conversion. Traditional conversion refers to the accepted use of words which are recorded in dictionaries, e.g. to age, to cook, to love, to look, to capture, etc. The individual or occasional use of conversion is also very frequent; verbs and adjectives are converted from nouns or vice versa. These cases of individual production serve the given occasion only and do not enter the word-stock of the English language. In modern English usage we find a great number of cases of occasional conversion, e.g. to girl the boat; when his guests had been washed, mended, brushed and brandied; How am I to preserve the respect of fellow-travellers, if I'm to be Billied at every turn?

35 Structural aspect of Composition.

W-C is the type of W-B in which new words are produced by combining 2ws which are both derivational bases. Compound Ws are inseparable voc. units, they take shape in definite system gram, syntactic and semantic features.

The structural meaning of compounds is formulated on the bases of 1)the meaning of their distributional pattern .

2)-\\- of their derivational pattern. The distributional pattern of a comp. is understood is the order in which the bases follow one another. A change in the order signals the compound Ws of different lexical meanings. a fruit-market — ‘market where fruit is sold’ with market-fruit — ‘fruit designed for selling’. The order is fixed in MED. Thus the distributional pattern of a comp. Carries a certain meaning which is largely independent of its lexical meaning.

The meaning of the derivational pattern of compound can be described through the interrelation. Underlying pattern n+Ven conveys the generalised meaning of instrumental relations, duty-bound can be interpreted as ‘done by’ or ‘with the help of something’. The derivational pattern in compounds may be monosemantic and polysemantic. Structural pattern n+n -> N conveys different semantic relations 1) of purpose, e.g. bookshelf, bed-room, 2) relations of resemblance, e.g. needle-fish, bowler-hat, 3) instrumental relations, steamboat, sunrise.