VIII. Conversion in Modern English word-building

• Are you training for a race?

• No, I’m racing for a train.

The process of coining a new word in a different part of speech and with a different set of characteristics, but without adding any derivative elements is named conversion. However, one should always bear in mind that these are only the basic forms of the original and derived words, which coincide and are homonymous.

The basic form of the word is the one that expresses the notion in the most abstract way. For nouns it’s the common case singular, for adjectives – the positive form, for verbs – the infinitive, etc.

Being a special type of word formation, conversion exists in many languages, but in Modern English it develops with special intensity.

The main reason here is the absence of morphological elements which could serve as classifying signals or formal signs, denoting the part of speech to which the word belongs. Here are some examples:

back (noun-спина, verb-обратный процесс, adj-задний, adv-снова, заново)

home (noun, verb, adj, adv)

silence (noun, verb)

round (noun, verb, adj, adv)

Apart from this, many affixes are homonymous in English. So, the general sound pattern doesn’t contain any information on the possible part of speech.

whiten – verb

maiden – noun

wooden – adj.

often – adv.

The historical development of conversion in English

The causes that make conversion widely-spread in English, as Otto Jesperson stated, are to be approached diachronically. Nouns and verbs became identical in their form firstly due to the loss of their endings.

Old English Modern English

caria(n)-verb care(verb, noun)

caru-noun

drincan-verb drink(verb,noun)

drinca, drinc-noun

slepan-verb sleep(verb,noun)

slep-noun

More rarely it was the prefix that became dropped in Modern English.

ğemund – mind(verb, noun)

A certain homonymy in the borrowing from French of numerous pairs of words of the same route, belonging in French to different parts of speech, resulted in the appearance of conversives in Modern English. Such words used the existing pattern of the loss of affixes and became phonetically identical:

Old French Modern English

eschequer(v) check(v/n)

eschec(n)

crier(v) cry(v/n)

cri(n)

Conversive processes in Modern English

Scientific research suggests that conversion is regular or patterned homonymy. Being such it has a number of characteristic features, i.e. though the conversion of suffixed and prefixed words is possible and exists in Modern English, it’s still rather uncommon.

commission – v/n

This seems natural, because a word, which can be divided into morphemes, is already a member of certain structural correlations. Thus, we can hardly form a verb from the noun arrival, because there exists a verb of the same root – to arrive.

It should be remembered, that conversion is a combined morphological and syntactical way of word-building.

e.g. If one struck lucky, one had a good buy.

“buy” – noun, because it occupies the position of a noun, is preceded by an indefinite article and is modified by an adj.

However, it’s hardly possible to tell the part of speech if we observe an isolated form, even if this form has an evident suffix with it.

e.g. buys – v/n

Semantic relationships in conversion

Alongside with conversion, when the latter takes place, a number of changes occur to the word in its syntactic functions, paradigm, distribution and meaning. It may even at times seem that the semantic relationships between the two identical forms are quite chaotic.

e.g. to dust – to remove the dust/to cover with smth dustlike (to dust a cake with sugar-powder)

A closer investigation shows rather patterned relationships, i.e. the lexical meaning of the verb may point out the instrument, the agent, the place, the cause, the result and the time of the action.

Examples of instrumental meaning of verbs:

to eye – to watch carefully with the eyes

to finger – to touch smth with fingers

to elbow – to push one’s way with elbows

to knife, to pump, to sandpaper (обрабатывать наждачной бумагой), to saw

All these verbs have a common element of meaning – to work with some definite articles, as with tools.

e.g. agent of action

to crowd – толпиться

to herd – сбиваться в стаю

Metaphorical agential verbs based on the names of animals:

to ape – to imitate smb in a foolish ape-like way

to wolf(down) – to eat hungrily like a wolf

Locative meaning can be traced in the verbs, denoting places:

to bag – to put smth into the bag

to corner – to set smb in a difficult position

to floor – to bring smb on the floor

Verbs with adjectival stems:

to blind, to calm, to idle, to lame

When used intransitively, these verbs mean to become blind, calm, idle, lame, etc.

If used as transitive verbs, they denote to make smb blind, etc.

Diverbal nouns may show the process:

hiss-шипение

hunt-охота

the result:

burn-ожог

cut-порез

the place:

drive-дорожка для проезда

a stand-место для стоянки

All these are connected with the verbs by the several meaning and naming of the appropriate action.