Lecture 5 Theme: Conversion and other (ways) types of word-formation.

Conversion, one of the principal ways of forming words in Modern English is highly productive in replenishing the English word-stock with new words. The term conversion, which some linguists find inadequate, refers to the numerous cases of phonetic identity of word-forms, primarily the so-called initial forms, of two words belonging to different parts of speech. This may be illustrated by the following cases: work – to work; love - to love; paper - to paper; brief - to brief, etc.

Modern English vocabulary is exceedingly rich in conversion pairs.

Conversion is highly productive in the formation of verbs, especially from compound nouns. 20^th 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”, etc.

Conversion is not an absolutely productive way of forming words because it is restricted both semantically and morphologically.

With reference to semantic restrictions it is assumed that all verbs can be divided into two groups:

a) verbs denoting processes …

E.g. run v – run n; jump v – jump n, fall v – fall n, etc.

b) verbs like to sit, to lie, to stand denoting processes that cannot be represented as a succession of isolated actions, thus defying conversion.

. There are cases of traditional and occasional conversion. Traditional conversion refers to the accepted use of words which are recorded in dictionaries, e.g. to age, to love, to lock, to capture. The individual or occasional use of conversion is also very frequent; verbs and adjectives are converted from nouns or vice versa for the sake of bringing out the meaning more vividly in a given context only ( e.g. to girl the boat; when his guests had been washed, mended, brushed and brandied).

Partial Conversion

There is a kind of double process when first a noun is formed by conversion from a verbal stem, and next this noun is combined with such verbs as give, make, have, take and a few others to form a verbal phrase with a special aspect characteristic, e.g. have a wash, a chat, a swim, a smoke, a look; give a laugh, a cry, a whistle; give the go by. A noun of this type can be also combined with verbs as to denote intermittent motion; give a jerk, a jump, a start; take a ride, a walk, the lead; make a move, a dive. There is a great number of idiomatic prepositional phrases as well: be in the know, in the long run.

Lecture 6 Theme: Semasiology. Word-meaning. Lexical meaning; Types of meaning.

The branch of the study of language concerned with the meaning of words, is called semasiology. The name comes from the Greek semasia – “signification” (from sema ‘sign’ and semantikes ‘significant’). As semasiology deals not with every kind of linguistic meaning but with lexical meaning only, it may be regarded as a branch of lexicology.

The main objects of semasiological study treated in this book are as follows: semantic developments of words, its causes and classification, relevant distinctive features and types of lexical meaning, polysemy and semantic structure of words, semantic grouping and connections in the vocabulary system, i.e. synonyms, antonyms, terminological systems, etc.