Examples of word conversion

English is an ever-evolving language. According to Global Language Monitor¹, a new word is created every 98 minutes. Conversions are responsible for giving new meaning to existing words, and the conversion process in English is more commonplace in the twenty-first-century lexicon than ever before.

Conversion
(zero derivation, root formation, functional change) is the process
of coining a new word in a different part of speech and with
different distribution characteristics but without adding any
derivative element, so that the basic form of the original and the
basic form of derived words are homonymous. This phenomenon can be
illustrated by the following cases: work – to work, love – to
love, water – to water.

If
we regard these words from the angle of their morphemic structure, we
see that they are root words. On the derivational level, however, one
of them should be referred to a derived word, as having the same root
morpheme they belong to different parts of speech. Consequently the
question arises here: “What serves as the word-building means in
such cases?” It would appear that the noun is formed from the verb
(or vice versa) without any morphological change, but if we probe
deeper into the matter, we inevitably come to the conclusion that the
two words differ only in the paradigm. Thus, it is the paradigm that
is used as a word-building means. Hence, we can define conversion as
the formation of a new word through changes in its paradigm.

The
change of the paradigm is the only word-building means of conversion.
As the paradigm is a morphological category, conversion can be
described as a morphological way of forming words.

As
a type of word-formation conversion exists in many languages. What is
specific for the English vocabulary is not its mere presence, but its
intense development.

The
main reason for the widespread development of conversion in
present-day English is no doubt the absence of morphological elements
serving as classifying signals, or, in other words, of formal signs
marking the part of speech to which the word belongs. The fact that
the sound pattern does not show to what part of speech the word
belongs may be illustrated by the word back. It may be a noun, a
verb, an adjective, an adverb.

Many
affixes are homonymous and therefore the general sound pattern does
not contain any information as to the possible part of speech.

e.g.:
maiden
(N), darken (V), woollen (A), often (Adv).

O.
Jesperson points out that the causes that made conversion so widely
spread are to be approached diachronically. The noun and verb have
become identical in form firstly as a result of the loss of endings.
More rarely it is the prefix that is lost (mind < gemynd). When
endings had disappeared phonetical development resulted in the
merging of sound forms for both elements of these pairs.

e.g.:
OE carian
(verb)
and caru
(noun)
merged into care
(verb,
noun); OE drinkan
(verb)
and drinca,
drinc
(noun)
merged into
drink
(verb, noun).

A
similar homonymy resulted in the borrowing from French of pairs of
words of the same root but belonging in French to different parts of
speech. These words lost their affixes and became phonetically
identical in the process of assimilation.

Prof.
A. Smirnitsky is of the opinion that on a synchronic level there is
no difference in correlation between such cases as listed above, i.e.
words originally differentiated by affixes and later becoming
homonymous after the loss of endings (sleep
–
noun :: sleep
– verb) and those formed by conversion (pencil
– noun :: pencil
–
verb).

Prof.
I. Arnold is of the opinion that prof. Smirnitsky is mistaken. His
mistake is in the wish to call both cases conversion, which is
illogical if he, or any of his followers, accepts the definition of
conversion as a word-building process which implies the diachronistic
approach. Prof. I. Arnold states that synchronically both types sleep
(noun) – sleep (verb) and pencil (noun) – pencil (verb) must be
treated together as cases of patterned homonymy. But it is essential
to differentiate the cases of conversion and treat them separately
when the study is diachronistic.

Conversion
has been the subject of a great many discussions since 1891 when

H.
Sweet first used the term in his New English Grammar. Various
opinions have been expressed on the nature and character of
conversion in the English language and different conceptions have
been put forward.

The
treatment of conversion as a morphological way of forming words was
suggested by A.I. Smirnitsky and accepted by R.Z. Ginzburg, S.S.
Khidekel,

G.Y.
Knyazeva, A.A. Sankin.

Other
linguists sharing, on the whole, the conception of conversion as a
morphological way of forming words disagree, however, as to what
serves here as a word-building means. Some of them define conversion
as a non-affixal way of forming words pointing out that its
characteristic feature is that a certain stem is used for the
formation of a categorically different word without a derivational
affix being added

(I.R.
Galperin, Y.B. Cherkasskaya).

Others
hold the view that conversion is the formation of new words with the
help of a zero-morpheme (H. Marchand).

There
is also a point of view on conversion as a morphological-syntactic
word-building means (Y.A. Zhluktenko), for it involves, as the
linguists sharing this conception maintain, both a change of the
paradigm and of the syntactic function of the word.

e.g.:
I
need some paper for my room : He is papering his room.

Besides,
there is also a purely syntactic approach commonly known as a
functional approach to conversion. In Great Britain and the United
States of America linguists are inclined to regard conversion as a
kind of functional change. They define conversion as a shift from one
part of speech to another contending that in modern English a word
may function as two different parts of speech at the same time.

The
two categories of parts of speech especially affected by conversion
are the noun and the verb. Verbs made from nouns are the most
numerous among the words produced by conversion.

e.g.:
to
hand, to face, to nose, to dog, to blackmail.

Nouns
are frequently made from verbs: catch,
cut, walk, move, go.

Verbs
can also be made from adjectives: to
pale, to yellow, to cool.

A
word made by conversion has a different meaning from that of the word
from which it was made though the two meanings can be associated.
There are certain regularities in these associations which can be
roughly classified. In the group of verbs made from nouns some
regular semantic associations are the following:

—
A noun is a name of a tool – a verb denotes an action performed by
the tool:
to
knife,
to brush.

—
A noun is a name of an animal – a verb denotes an action or aspect
of behaviour typical of the animal: monkey
– to monkey, snake – to snake.
Yet, to fish does not mean to behave like a fish but to try to catch
fish.

—
A noun denotes a part of a human body – a verb denotes an action
performed by it : hand
– to hand, shoulder – to shoulder.
However, to face does not imply doing something by or even with one’s
face but turning it in a certain direction.

—
A noun is a name of some profession or occupation – a verb denotes
an activity typical of it : a
butcher – to butcher, a father – to father.

—
A noun is a name of a place – a verb denotes the process of
occupying this place or putting something into it: a
bed – to bed, a corner – to corner.

—
A noun is the name of a container – a verb denotes an act of
putting something within the container: a
can – to can, a bottle – to bottle.

—
A noun is the name of a meal – a verb denotes the process of taking
it: supper
– to supper, lunch – to lunch.

The
suggested groups do not include all the great variety of verbs made
from nouns by conversion. They just represent the most obvious cases
and illustrate the great variety of semantic interrelations within
the so-called converted pairs and the complex nature of the logical
associations which underlie them.

In
actual fact, these associations are more complex and sometimes even
perplexing.

Types
of Conversion

Partial
conversion is a kind of a double process when first a noun is formed
by conversion from a verbal stem and next this noun is combined with
such verbs as to give, to make, to take to form a separate phrase: to
have a look, to take a swim, to give a whistle.

There
is a great number of idiomatic prepositional phrases as well: to be
in the know, in the long run, to get into a scrape. Sometimes the
elements of these expressions have a fixed grammatical form, as, for
example, where the noun is always plural: It
gives
me
the creeps (jumps).
In other cases the grammatical forms are free to change.

Reconversion
is the phenomenon when one of the meanings of the converted word is a
source for a new meaning of the same stem: cable
(металевий
провідник)
– to cable (телеграфувати)
– cable(телеграма);
help(допомога)
– to help (допомагати
пригощати)
– help (порція
їжі),
deal (кількість)
– to deal (роздавати)
– deal (роздача
карт).

Substantivation
can also be considered as a type of conversion. Complete
substantivation is a kind of substantivation when the whole paradigm
of a noun is acquired: a private — the private – privates – the
privates. Alongside with complete substantivation there exists
partial substantivation when a feature or several features of a
paradigm of a noun are acquired: the rich. Besides the substantivized
adjectives denoting human beings there is a considerable group of
abstract nouns: the Singular, the Present. It is thus evident that
substantivation has been the object of much controversy. Those who do
not accept substantivation of adjectives as a type of conversion
consider conversion as a process limited to the formation of verbs
from nouns and nouns from verbs. But this point of view is far from
being universally accepted.

Conversion
is not characteristic of the Ukrainian language. The only type of
conversion that can be found there is substantivation:
молодий,
хворий.

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In English grammar, conversion is a word-formation process that assigns an existing word to a different word class, part of speech, or syntactic category. This process is also called zero derivation or a functional shift. The rhetorical term for grammatical conversion is anthimeria. Read to find out how this popular language device can be used and why it came to be.

Why Use Conversion?

But why would one part of speech need to be changed into another? Jean Aitchison, author of Language Change: Progress or Decay? gives examples of how this process is useful. «Consider sentences such as: Henry downed a pint of beer, Melissa went to town and did a buy. English, we note, lacks a simple means of saying ‘to do something in one fell swoop.’ This may be why the word down can be converted into a verb to mean ‘drink down in one gulp,’ and the word buy into a noun which, when combined with the verb do, means ‘go on a single massive shopping spree.’

This type of fast-moving, thorough activity may represent a change in the pace of life, which is in turn reflected in the language since we increasingly make use of conversions—the conversion of one part of speech into another,»
(Aitchison 1991).

Which Part-of-Speech Came First?

Some words have been functioning as multiple parts-of-speech for so long that their origins are a bit fuzzy. Naturally, for words like this, the question arises: which came first, the noun or the verb? See what author and linguist Barry Blake has to say about this puzzle. «Almost all the examples [of zero conversion] are of shifts between noun, verb, and adjective. In some instances the direction of the shift is clear.

We have had the noun text for a long time, but it has come to be used as a verb only recently with reference to sending messages full of abbreviations via mobile/cell phone. In other instances, we might hesitate to say which part of speech came first, as with plot, for instance. Was it a noun first or was it a verb first?» (Blake 2008).

The Role of Meaning in Conversion

New conversions are still being created in modern English and this will probably always be the case. Language professionals that devote their lives to studying processes such as this one insist that meaning is one of the biggest determinants of whether a conversion would be or is semantically logical—after all, words should not randomly be assigned new syntactic categories. The following excerpt from Approaches to Conversion/Zero-Derivation dives into this topic further.

«Meaning is as crucial to the system of word-classes … as it is to the recognition of instances of conversion. Even if it were not for the homophonous noun plane ‘carpenter’s tool,’ we would not wish to relate to plane ‘smooth a piece of wood’ and a plane ‘aircraft’ by conversion, because their meanings are not sufficiently close. What is a sufficiently close meaning (and how it can be defined) remains an open question.

A slightly dubious example is to bank ‘turn an aircraft’ and a bank ‘side of a hill’ which, despite their etymological relatedness, may no longer be close enough semantically for us to wish to say that the same relationship holds between them as between to bridge and a bridge. Somehow, then, we need to operationalize the notion of related in meaning to a sufficient degree to allow us to recognize potential instances of conversion,» (Bauer and Hernandez 2005).

Examples of Linguistic Conversion

Linguist conversion can be found in nearly any style of speaking and writing, and some—such as a highly specific noun masquerading as a verb—are much easier to spot than others. This list of examples of conversion will help you understand how it can be used.

• «Let’s not Rumsfeld Afghanistan,» (Graham 2009).
• «Boyes spent the night with Mr. Vaughan, and they breakfasted together in the usual way upon bacon and eggs, toast, marmalade and coffee,» (Sayers 1928).
• «One writer who went on a tour of New York’s Harlem district was shown the place where Adam C. Powell was ‘funeralized’. Another letter detailed an American friend’s eagerness to see the Prince of Wales ‘coronated’. On a flight to Boston, flight attendants promised passengers they would soon ‘beverage’, but later, because of adverse weather conditions, they said they were ‘unable to complete bulverization’. Asked about this trend, one American quipped: ‘Any noun can be verbed,'» (Courtney 2008).

Conversions in Shakespeare

Even William Shakespeare himself was a fan of this linguistic device and took any opportunity to creatively convert a word. He was a pioneer of normalized conversion, named an «expert» by linguist and author David Crystal. «Shakespeare was the conversion expert. ‘I eared her language.’ ‘He words me.’ Some of his conversions seem really daring. Even the name of a person can become a verb. ‘Petruchio is Kated.’ But all he was doing was tapping into a natural everyday usage that is still with us,» (Crystal 2012).

Sources

• Aitchison, Jean. Language Change: Progress or Decay? Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• Bauer, Laurie, and Salvador Valera Hernandez. “Conversion or Zero-Derivation: An Introduction.” Approaches to Conversion/Zero-Derivation, Waxmann Verlag, 2005.
• Blake, Barry J. All About Language. Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Courtney, Kevin. “Con Text Verbing.” The Irish Times, 18 Mar. 2008.
• Crystal, David. The Story of English in 100 Words. St. Martin’s Press, 2012.
• Graham, Lindsey. “Face the Nation.” CBS Broadcasting. 9 Aug. 2009.
• Sayers, Dorothy L. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club. Ernest Benn, 1928.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In linguistics, conversion, also called zero derivation or null derivation, is a kind of word formation involving the creation of a word (of a new word class) from an existing word (of a different word class) without any change in form,^[1] which is to say, derivation using only zero. For example, the noun green in golf (referring to a putting-green) is derived ultimately from the adjective green.

Conversions from adjectives to nouns and vice versa are both very common and unnotable in English; much more remarked upon is the creation of a verb by converting a noun or other word (e.g., the adjective clean becomes the verb to clean).

Verbification [edit]

Verbification, or verbing, is the creation of a verb from a noun, adjective or other word.

In English[edit]

In English, verbification typically involves simple conversion of a non-verb to a verb. The verbs to verbify and to verb, the first by derivation with an affix and the second by zero derivation, are themselves products of verbification (see autological word), and, as might be guessed, the term to verb is often used more specifically, to refer only to verbification that does not involve a change in form. (Verbing in this specific sense is therefore a kind of anthimeria.)

Examples of verbification in the English language number in the thousands, including some of the most common words such as mail and e-mail, strike, talk,^{[dubious – discuss]} salt, pepper, switch, bed, sleep, ship, train, stop, drink, cup, lure, mutter, dress, dizzy, divorce, fool, merge, to be found on virtually every page in the dictionary. Thus, verbification is by no means confined to slang and has furnished English with countless new expressions: «access», as in «access the file», which was previously only a noun, as in «gain access to the file». Similar mainstream examples include «host», as in «host a party», and «chair», as in «chair the meeting». Other formations, such as «gift», are less widespread but nevertheless mainstream.

Verbification may have a bad reputation with some English users because it is such a potent source of neologisms. Although some neologistic products of verbification may meet considerable opposition from prescriptivist authorities (the verb sense of impact is a well-known example), most such derivations have become so central to the language after several centuries of use that they no longer draw notice.

In many cases, the verbs were distinct from their noun counterparts in Old English, and regular sound change has made them the same form: these can be reanalysed as conversion. «Don’t talk the talk if you can’t walk the walk» is an example of a sentence using those forms.^{[citation needed]}

In other languages[edit]

In other languages, verbification is a more regular process. However, such processes often do not qualify as conversion, as they involve changes in the form of the word. For example, in Esperanto, any word can be transformed into a verb, either by altering its ending to -i, or by applying suffixes such as -igi and -iĝi; and in Semitic languages, the process often involves changes of internal vowels, such as the Hebrew word «גגל» (Gigél, «He/it googled»), from the proper noun גוגל (Google).
In Toki Pona, any content word may function as a noun, verb or adjective depending on syntax. For example, moku may either mean food or to eat.

Noun conversion in English[edit]

Many English nouns are formed from unmodified verbs: a fisherman’s catch, to go for a walk, etc.^[2]

Humor[edit]

Verbification is sometimes used to create nonce words or joking words. Often, simple conversion is involved, as with formations like beer, as in beer me («give me a beer») and eye, as in eye it («look at it»).^{[clarification needed]} Sometimes, a verbified form can occur with a prepositional particle, e.g., sex as in sex it up («make it sexier»).

A Calvin and Hobbes strip dealt with this phenomenon, concluding with the statement that «Verbing weirds language»,^[3] demonstrating the verbing of both verb and weird. (The former appears in its use as a gerund.)

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• «Grammar Puss» by Steven Pinker
• Figures of Speech
• «Verbing Nouns»

From : http://www.myshared.ru/slide/1044936/

Now that my honeymoon is completely over and that I have suffered the rough transition back to work I can resume my writing about English quirks. Today, I’m going to speak about a unique quirky characteristic of English, that of conversion. What’s that ? It’s when you have you change the grammatical category of a word without changing it, without any suffixes or prefixes. Take for example the verb ‘help.’ You can use it in sentences like ‘don’t worry. I’ll help you.’ ‘Help’ can be transformed into a noun without changing the word as you can see in ‘I helped him because he needed some help.’ The same happens with the noun drink : ‘you can go out for a drink‘ (noun) or ‘drink  some beer.’ (verb). 

1) Normally, conversion results in verbification, that is, in the creation of new verbs from other parts of speech. Let’s see some examples of this :

— Email is mostly a noun, as in ‘send me an email’, but thanks to conversion, ’email’ became a verb (‘he emailed me.’)

— Better can be an adjective (as in ‘that book is much better’) or an adverb (‘he speaks better than he used to’). With the passage of time, ‘better’ has also become a verb, for instance, he is fighting to better his working conditions.

— In the same way, ‘best’ works frequently as either adjective (the best programme) or adverb (she sings best) but odd though  it may sound you can acceptably use ‘best’ as a verb : ‘Joe bested Mark at videogames’. 

— Salt and pepper are nouns but now you can use them as verbs meaning ‘to condiment food with salt and pepper’

— Coat is a piece of clothing for cold weather but conversion has also turned it into a verb meaning ‘cover’ or ‘protect’. This word have even taken some compounds such as ‘sugarcoat’ (cover something with sugar). 

— Bed frequently refers to the thing you sleep on, but it can also work as a verb meaning ‘cover’ or ‘wrap’ (he bedded the china to protect it).

— A house is where people live but, as a verb, it means to welcome people to sleep over (that residence can house up to 1,000 people).

— Phone is something to talk to someone far away, but, as you know, it has become the action (you can phone someone using a phone).

— An eye is a part of the body to see things, but, as a verb, you can eye someone in detail (watch attentively).


— Water is a liquid that all of us need to keep living. Apart from that, it can be used as a verb meaning ‘irrigate water to the plants.’ You can water the plants. 

From : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg21PmZL1Ao

— Down is usually a preposition or adverb but it can be transformed into a verb (he downed his gun).

2) Sometimes, when conversion takes place in the creation of a verb, a preposition or adverb is needed. In other words, conversion is good at creating phrasal verbs or prepositional verbs. Let’s see some examples :

— Butter is a typical ingredient you put on toast, but, as a verb, you can butter up someone (praise and say good things to someone to get something)

— Cheese is a delicious dairy product. However, if something cheeses you off it means it’s really annoying. 

3) On other occasions, conversion creates new nouns from verbs.

— You can walk or go for a walk.

— You can swim or have a swim.

— You can run/jog or go for a run/a jog.

— You can go to the cinema or have a go at something (try).

— You must study or studying is a must. 

— There are a lot of things you have to do or you have a lot of do’s.

4) Conversion can be used to create new words. 

In the past, Google was just a company, but now you can ‘google’ something (look for something on the Internet).

In the same way, you can use conversion to invent new words : prepare to be photoed; ketchup the fries (=add ketchup); calendar something (=put it on the calendar). Your creativity has no limits but make sure you get your message across!

Well, conversion is quite interesting, don’t you think ? It’s part of lexical creativity to create new words and it makes English easier than you can imagine. Can you think of more examples of conversion ? Please, contribute.