What is conversion in word formation

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»

Conversion
(конверсия)
is
the formation of words without using word-building affixes.
Conversion is the process of shifting a word from one part of speech
to another (e.g. salt,
n →
salt,
v;
jump,
v →
jump, n).
A certain root is used for the formation of a categorically different
word without an element being added, e.g. bag
– to bag,
back
– to back,
bottle
– to bottle.
Conversion is a productive way of forming words in English.

The
productive models of conversion in English are the following:

1)
formation of verbs from nouns (Noun
→
Verb),
e.g. cash,
n –
cash,
v;
work,
n
–
work, v;
butter
–
to
butter;
ship
– to
ship,
a
dog – to dog
(следовать
по
пятам),
a
monkey – to monkey
(передразнивать).
The noun is the name of an animal and the verb denotes behaviour
typical of this animal. Nose
– to
nose,
hammer
– to hammer,
i.e. the noun is the name of a tool and the verb is the name of an
action, which is performed by this tool.

2)
formation of nouns from verbs (Verb
→
Noun),
e.g. fall,
v
– fall,
n;
must,
v
– must,
n;
to
survey –
a
survey;
to
call –
a
call;

3)
formation of nouns from adjectives (Adjective
→
Noun),
e.g. criminal,
adj –
criminal,
n;
intellectual,
adj –
intellectual,
n;
poor
– the
poor;
final
– a
final);

4)
formation of verbs from adjectives (Adjective
→
Verb),
e.g. slow,
adj –
slow,
v;
brown,
adj –
brown,
v;
dirty
– to
dirty.

6. Other types of word-formation

Word-composition
(словосложение)
is the formation of words by joining two (or more) roots, e.g.
night-club,
man-of-war,
passer-by.
The combination of two or more existing words to create a new word is
one of the most common word-building processes in English.
A compound word (or
compound) is a unit consists of more than one lexical root, e.g.
bluebird
(adjective
+ noun); in-laws
(preposition
+ noun); jumpsuit
(verb
+ noun).

Compound
words may be classified according to the parts of speech:

a) nouns:
waterfall,
looking-glass;

b) verbs:
to
honeymoon,
to
outgrow;

c)
adjectives:
peace-loving,
hard-working;

d) adverbs:
downstairs,
lip-deep;

e)
prepositions:
within,
into;

f)
numerals:
thirty-seven,
fifty-nine.

Compounding
(словослияние)
is
the making of a new word by joining two or more roots together. These
words are classified into the following groups:

1)
neutral compounds, where the words are joined together, without any
connecting element, e.g. headache,
heartbreak,
bedroom;

2)
morphological compounds, in which the words are joined by a vowel or
a consonant, e.g. speedometer,
craftsman,
statesman,
bridesmaid;

3)
synthetic compounds, in which words are joined by a prepositions or
conjunction as a linking element, e.g. down-and-out
(в
ужасном
положении,
опустошенный),
mother-in-law,
good-for-nothing
(лентяй,
бездельник);

4)
derivational compounds, in which the words have affixes in their
roots, e.g. film-goer,
blue-eyed;

5)
contracted compounds, in which one of the words is shortened, e.g.
TV-set,
H-bag
(handbag).

Affixation,
conversion, and compounding are the three main types of
word-formation in English. There are a number of other ways of
forming words, such as:

a)
clipping
(сокращение)
is the process of cutting off one or several syllables of a word,
e.g. maths
(mathematics),
lab
(laboratory),
gym
(gymnastics),
ZOO
(zoological
garden), exam
(examination), BBC
(British
Broadcasting Corporation), i.e.
(Latin
“id est” – English “that is”), e.g.
(Latin
“exempli gratia” – English “for example), etc.
(Latin
“et cetera” – English “and so on”).

Three
types of clipping can be distinguished:

• the
  first part is left, e.g. ad
  (advertisement),
  prof
  (professor);

• the
  second part is left, e.g. phone
  (telephone), plane
  (airplane), burger
  (hamburger);

• a
  middle part is left, e.g. fridge
  (refrigerator), flu
  (influenza).

b)
back-formation
(реверсия)
is a process that creates a new word by removing affix from another
word in the language, e.g. to
televise (from
“television”), to
babysit (from
“a babysitter”);

c)
blending
(стяжение)
is the process of merging parts of words into one new word, usually
the first part of one and the final part of the other, e.g. brunch
(from
“breakfast”
and “lunch”);
smog
(from
“smoke”
and “fog”),
motel
(from
“motorist”
and “hotel”),
medicare
(from “medical”
and “care”);

d)
sound
imitation
(звуковое
подражание)
is the formation of words from sounds associated with objects
producing these sounds, buzz,
meow,
cuckoo,
cock-a-doodle-doo,

splash,
tick-tick;

e)
sound-interchange
(чередование
звука)
is
a way of making words by changing the phonetic shape of the root,
e.g. food,
n –
feed,
v;
sing,
v –
song,
n;
speak,
v
– speech,
n; life, n –
live,
n.
It was produced in old English and now it is not produced at all;

f)
stress-interchange
(чередование
ударения)
is a way of making words by changing the stress in one and the same
morpheme in various cases of its occurrence, e.g. ′present,
n
– to
pre′sent, v;
′present,
n
– to
pre′sent, v;
′record,
n
–
to re′cord, v;

′import, n –
to
im′port.

SEMINAR
7

KEY
TERMS

morpheme
root

free
morpheme

bound
morpheme

affix

suffix

prefix

inflexions

derived
word compound word

productivity
conversion

composition
compounding

clipping
back-formation

TOPICS
FOR DISCUSSION AND EXERCISES

1. What is a
   word-formation? How is word-formation classified?

2. How do you
   distinguish between a morpheme and a word?

3. Morphemes;
   types of morphemes. Structural types of words in English.

4. Affixation.
   Classifications of affixes.

5. What is
   conversion? Semantic groups of converted lexical units.

6. Composition.
   Give examples of different types of composition.

7. Ways of
   forming compounds.

8. Classifications
   of compound words.

9. What is
   back-formation?

10. What is
    abbreviation, clipping, blending?

1.
Give examples of free and bound morphemes (5-7 of each type).

2.
Form words with a negative meaning, using prefixes
in-, un-, dis-, de-.

Ability,
able, accessible, action, admissible, expected, comprehensible, to
tie,

eatable, to
bind, to charge, to obey, to organize, to mobilize, to bolt, just,
justice.

3.
State
what part of speech the following words belong to. Read the pairs of
words and comment on the stress in them.

1. Economy
– economic; industry – industrial; technology – technological;
solid – solidity.

2. Canada –
Canadian; Europe – European; Japan – Japanese.

3. To
generate – generation; to investigate – investigation; to form –
formation; to specialize – specialization; to analyse – analysis,
analytic; emphasize – emphasis, emphatic; to separate –
separation.

4.
Translate the following compound words into Russian. State the type
of compounds.

Undertaker,
stay-at-home, red-hot, bird’s-eye, lady-bird, jelly-fish, madbrain,
busybody, brassface, fire-eater, handiwork, officer-in-charge,
early-riser, T-shirt, golden-haired.

5. Analyse
the structure of the compounds. Translate them into Russian.

1. Office-manager,
   office-managing, office-management.

2. Novel-translator,
   novel-translating, novel-translation.

3. Mail-deliverer,
   mail-delivering, mail-delivery.

4. Mainland,
   letterbox, postman, rain-proof, grandchildren, gentleman,
   snow-storm, foot-path, ice-breaker, world-wide, oil-rich,
   first-hand, shorthand, highway, bookshelf.

6. Compare
the verbs with the corresponding nouns. Translate them into Russian.

ape –
to ape ass – to ass
dog – to dog

duck –
to duck fish – to fish
eye – to eye

finger –
to finger monkey – to monkey rat – to
rat

wolf –
to wolf back – to back bone
– to bone

head –
to head shoulder – to shoulder top –
to top

dress –
to dress pocket – to pocket line –
to line

face –
to face collar – to collar
star – to star

Test

1.
Affixation is:

a)
a way of word-building consisting in adding an affix to the root of a
definite part of speech

b)
a way of word-building consisting in adding an affix to the root of a
noun

c)
shortening of words

d)
a type of morphological analysis

2.
The main function of suffixes in Modern English is:

a)
to change the lexical meaning of a word

b)
to form the verb

c)
to ask questions

d)
to form one part of speech from another

3.
Сonversion
is a morphological way of forming words:

a)
when one part of speech is formed from another part of speech

b)
when a noun is formed from the verb

c)
when a noun is formed from the adjective

d)
when a verb is formed from another part of speech

4.
Clipping consists:

a)
in adding a part of a word

b)
in cutting off a part of a word

c)
in cutting off a prefix

d)
in adding a suffix

5.
Determine the number of morphemes in the word “reactivate”:

a)
one

b)
two

c)
three

d)
four

6.
Inflexions
are
morphemes used to change:

a)
phonetic
forms of the word

b)
grammar
forms of the word

c)
semantic forms

d)
stylistic forms

PART
FOUR

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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.

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.