Word change part of speech

You cannot ‘change’ a word from one part of speech to another. The words already exist or they don’t. (You can form a new noun from a verb, but you are not ‘changing’ it to a noun.) A noun is a noun and cannot be a verb. Some words exist as several parts of speech (‘set’, ‘run’, ‘form’, ‘hold’, etc.), though usually with somewhat different meanings.

Consider the shifts in meaning of ‘house’ in ‘house wine’, ‘the part of the car that houses the engine’, and ‘this is my house’.

Others have separate spellings for noun, adjective, and verb forms (‘beauty’, ‘beautiful’, ‘beautify’). As I said above, you can use some words as nouns or verbs, but you are not ‘changing’ them to do so. You do not have the authority to do this if it has not already occurred long ago. ‘Car’ for instance is a noun, not a verb, and cannot be used as one. ‘To sign’ the verb and ‘sign’ the noun are different words, just like ‘beauty’, ‘beautiful’, ‘beautify’; one is not ‘changed’ into the other.

When learning English, the structure of words is something that is critical to master. Many students begin to learn to read and quickly notice that the same «root» word appears over and over, but that the letters at the beginning or the end of the word can change the word’s meaning entirely. These letters are called prefixes and suffixes, and they are a critical part of learning to speak and write English.

What Are Parts of Speech?

When learning English, parts of speech are a critical piece of the puzzle. Parts of speech, also called «word classes,» tell us what a word does in a sentence. For example, a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, conjunction and an article all serve different purposes in a sentence. In addition to the words themselves, there are groupings of letters that get added to the beginnings and ends of different parts of speech that can entirely change their meaning.

For example, «runner» and «running» are both describing the same thing, but they are different parts of speech. By adding the -ing or the «suffix,» the meaning of «runner» has been changed. «Runner» describes someone who runs, while «running» describes the act of running in the present tense. By adding letters at the end of the word «run,» the suffixes have changed the meaning of the word.

It can be confusing to know exactly what the words, prefix and suffix mean, but roughly, they are about attaching a syllable to either the front of the word or the end of it, to communicate something related to the «root» word. Generally, prefixes and suffixes serve to provide us with an understanding of when something happened, or who performed the act. However, this is not always the case.

Parts of a Word That Can Be Added to Change the Meaning

A prefix is defined as any grouping of letters that can be attached to the beginning of a word in order to change its meaning. Before a prefix is added, the word as it is, is called a «root word.» Root words are the base of the words that have a prefix or suffix attached. Root words retain their meaning when written or spoken alone, but when paired with a host of prefixes and suffixes, their meaning becomes something completely different.

Certain prefixes and suffixes have the same effect on any words to which they are applied. This makes it easy to learn. In addition, learning prefixes and suffixes by using a suffixes and parts of speech worksheet means that you will be able to recognize the suffixes even when they are attached to root words that you are not familiar with and that will likely help you to understand those words.

What Are Some Common Prefixes and Suffixes?

Students beginning to study suffixes and prefixes often encounter a part of speech created with suffixes: -ary, -ic, -ior. They are also likely to encounter parts of speech created with prefixes like de-, re-, dis- and pre. These prefixes and suffixes are meant to modify or alter the root word to which they are attached by being small words in themselves.

The prefix de- for instance, when attached to a root word means to undo, to decrease, to lessen, to take down. «Defund» for example, means to remove funds from. «Delocate» means to move away. «Decrease» means to lessen.

Once you know what the prefix «de-» means, you will recognize that its effect on whichever root word it is attached to is to indicate that something has changed or decreased. The same is true of suffixes, like the suffix «-ed.» When you encounter «-ed» it typically puts words into the past tense, as in «happened,» «wrapped,» «folded»and «skied.»

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.

Some words can become different parts of speech by changing their endings or their placement in the sentence. The forms of these words look almost the same but depending on which part of speech they are, their spelling may change. Some words use the same spelling for different forms of the word, but depending on how it is used in the sentence, it can mean different things.

Here is a list of words, their possible endings, and their part of speech.