I. Verbs converted from nouns (denominal verbs).

This is the largest group of words related through conversion. The semantic relations between the nouns and verbs vary greatly. If the noun refers to some object of reality (both animate and inanimate) the con­verted verb may denote:

1) action characteristic of the object, e.g.ape n—ape v—'imitate in a foolish way';butcher n—butcher v—'kill animals for food, cut up a killed animal';

2) instrumental use of the object, e.g.screw n—screw v—'fasten with a screw';whip n—whip v—'strike with a whip';

3) acquisition or addition of the object, e.g.fish n—fish v—'catch or try to catch fish';coat n—'covering of paint'—coat v—'put a coat of paint on';

4) deprivation of the object, e.g.dust n—dust v—'remove dust-from something';skin n—skin v—'strip off the skin from'; etc.

II. Nouns converted from verbs (deverbal substantives).

The verb generally referring to an action, the converted noun may denote:

1) instance of the action, e.g.jump v—jump n—'sudden spring from the ground';move v—move n—a change of position';

2) agent of the action, e.g.helpv—help n—‘a person who helps'; it is of interest to mention that the deverbal personal nouns denoting the doer are mostly derogatory, e.g.bore v—bore n—'a person that bores'; cheat v—cheat n—'a person who cheats';

3) place of the action, e.g.drive v— drive n—'a path or road along which one drives';walk v—walk n—'a place for walking';

4) object or result of the action, e.g.peel v—peel n—'the outer skin of fruit or potatoes taken off’;find v—find n—'something found, esp. something valuable or pleasant'; etc.

[…]

I

Polysemantic conversives

n conclusion it is necessary to pointout that in the case of polyse­mantic words one and the same member of a conversion pair, a verb or a noun, belongs to several of the above-mentioned groups making different derivational bases. For instance, the verbdust belongs to Group 4 of Denominal verbs (deprivation of the object) when it means 'remove dust from something', and to Group 3 (acquisition or addition of the object) when it means 'cover with powder'; the nounslide is referred to Group 3 of Deverbal substantives (place of the action) when denoting 'a stretch of smooth ice or hard snow on which people slide' and to Group 2 (agent of the action) when it refers to a part of an instrument or machine that slides, etc.

M

Diachronic approach to conversion

odern English vocabulary is exceedingly rich in conversion pairs. As a way of forming words conversion is extremely productive and new conversion pairs make their appearance in fiction, newspaper articles and in the process of oral communication in all spheres of human activity gradually forcing their way into the existing vo­cabulary and into the dictionaries as well. New conversion pairs are cre­ated on the analogy of those already in the word-stock on the semantic patterns described above as types of semantic relations. Conversion is highly productive in the formation of verbs, especially from compound nouns. 20th century new words include a great many verbs formed by con­version, e.g.to motor—'travel by car';to phone—'use the telephone'; to wire—'send a telegram';to microfilm—'produce a microfilm of’;to tear-gas—'to use tear-gas';to fire-bomb—'drop fire-bombs';to spear­head—'act as a spearhead for';to blueprint—'work out, outline', etc.

A diachronic survey of the present-day stock of conversion pairs re­veals, however, that not all of them have been created on the semantic patterns just referred to. Some of them arose as a result of the disappear­anceof inflections in the course of the historical development of the English language due to which two words of different parts of speech, e.g. a verb and a noun, coincided in pronunciation. This is the case with such word-pairs, for instance, asloven (OE. lufu)—love v (OE. lufian);workn (OE. weorc)—work v (OE. wyrcan);answer n (OE. andswaru)—answer v (OE. andswarian) and many others. For this reason certain linguists con­sider it necessary to distinguish between homonymous word-pairs which appeared as a result of the loss of inflections and those formed by conver­sion. The term conversion is applied then only to cases likedoctor n— doctor v; brief a—brief v that came into being after the disappearance of inflections, word-pairs likework n—work v being regarded exclusively as cases of homonymy.

Other linguists share Prof. Smirnitsky's views concerning discrimi­nation between conversion as a derivational means and as a type of word-building relations between words in Modern English. Synchronically in Modern English there is no difference at all between cases liketaxi n— taxi v and cases likelove n—love v from the point of view of their morpho­logical structure and the word-building system of the language. In either case the only difference between the two words is that of the paradigm: the historical background is here irrelevant. It should be emphatically stressed at this point that the present-day derivative correlations within conversion pairs do not necessarily coincide with the etymological rela­tionship. For instance, in the word-pairawe n—awe v the noun is the source, of derivation both diachronically and synchronically, butitis quite different with the pairmould v—mould n: historically the verb is the derived member,whereas it is the other way round from the angle of Modern English (cf. the derivativesmouldable, moulding, moulderwhich have suffixes added to verb-bases).

A

Reconversion

diachronic semantic analysis of a conversion pair reveals that in the course of time the semantic structure of thebase may acquire a new meaning or several meanings under the influence of the meanings of the converted word. This semantic process has been termed reconver­sion in linguistic literature. There is an essential difference between conversion and reconversion: being a way of forming words conversion leads to a numerical enlargement of the English vocabulary, whereas re­conversion only brings about a new meaning correlated with one of the meanings of the converted word. Research has shown that reconversiononly operates with denominal verbs and deverbal nouns. As an illustra­tion the conversion pairsmoke n—smoke v may be cited. According to the Oxford English Dictionary some of the meanings of the two words are:

SMOKE n	SMOKE v
1.the visible volatile product given off by burning or smouldering substances (1000) c) the act of smoke coming out into a room instead of passing up in the chimney (1715)	1. intr. to produce or give forth smoke (1000) c) of a room, chimney, lamp, etc.: to be smoky, to emit smoke as the result of imperfect draught or improper burning (1663)

Comparison makes it possible to trace the semantic development of each word. The verbsmoke formed in 1000 from the nounsmoke in the corresponding meaning had acquired by 1663 another meaning by a metaphorical transfer which, in turn, gave rise to a correlative meaning of the nounsmoke in 1715 through reconversion.