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§ 20. Diachronic Approach of Conversion. Origin

Modern English vocabulary is exceedingly rich in conversion pairs. As a way of forming words conversion is extremely productive and new conversion pairs make their appearance in fiction, newspaper articles and in the process of oral communication in all spheres of human activity gradually forcing their way into the existing vocabulary and into the dictionaries as well.

New conversion pairs are created on the analogy of those already in the word-stock on the semantic patterns described above as types of semantic relations. Conversion is highly productive in the formation of verbs, especially from compound nouns. 20th 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’; to fire-bomb — ?drop fire-bombs’; to spearhead — ?act as a spearhead for’; to blueprint — ?work out, outline’, etc.
A diachronic survey of the present-day stock of conversion pairs reveals, however, that not all of them have been created on the semantic patterns just referred to. Some of them arose as a result of the disappear-

1 See П. А. Соболева. О трансформационном анализе словообразовательных отношений. — Сб. Трансформационный метод в структурной лингвистике. М., 1964.

2 See ?Methods and Procedures of Lexicological Analysis’, § 5, p. 251. 3 The sign -> shows the possibility of transformation.

4 The sign -> denotes the impossibility of transformation.

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ance of inflections in the course of the historical development of the English language due to which two words of different parts of speech, e.g.

a verb and a noun, coincided in pronunciation. This is the case with such word-pairs, for instance, as love n (OE. lufu) — love v (OE. lufian); work n (OE. wēōrc) — work v (OE. wyrcan); answer n (OE. andswaru) — answer v (OE. andswarian) and many others. For this reason certain linguists consider it necessary to distinguish between homonymous word-pairs which appeared as a result of the loss of inflections and those formed by conversion. The term conversion is applied then only to cases like doctor n — doctor v; brief a — brief v that came into being after the disappearance of inflections, word-pairs like work n — work v being regarded exclusively as cases of homonymy.1

Other linguists share Prof. Smirnitsky’s views concerning discrimination between conversion as a derivational means and as a type of word-building relations between words in Modern English. Synchronically in Modern English there is no difference at all between cases like taxi n — taxi v and cases like love n — love v from the point of view of their morphological structure and the word-building system of the language. In either case the only difference between the two words is that of the paradigm: the historical background is here irrelevant. It should be emphatically stressed at this point that the present-day derivative correlations within conversion pairs do not necessarily coincide with the etymological relationship. For instance, in the word-pair awe n — awe v the noun is the source, of derivation both diachronically and synchronically, but it is quite different with the pair mould v — mould n: historically the verb is the derived member, whereas it is the other way round from the angle of Modern English (cf. the derivatives mouldable, moulding, moulder which have suffixes added to verb-bases).

A diachronic semantic analysis of a conversion pair reveals that in the course of time the semantic structure of the base may acquire a new meaning or several meanings under the influence of the meanings of the converted word.

This semantic process has been termed reconversion in linguistic literature.2 There is an essential difference between conversion and reconversion: being a way of forming words conversion leads to a numerical enlargement of the English vocabulary, whereas reconversion only brings about a new meaning correlated with one of the meanings of the converted word. Research has shown that reconversion

1 Because of the regular character of semantic correlation within such word-pairs as well as within conversion pairs formed on the semantic patterns I. P. Ivanova intro-

duces the notion of patterned homonymy. She points out that conversion is one of the sources of homonymy, there are also other sources such as coincidence in sound-form of words of different parts of speech, borrowing two words of different parts of speech in the same phonetic shape, and some others. (See ?. П. ?ванова. О морфологической характеристике слова в современном английском языке. — Сб. : Проблемы морфологического строя германских языков. М., 1963; see also I. Arnold. The English Word. M., 1973, ch. VIII.)

2 See П. М. Каращук. Реконверсия и ее роль в развитии семантических структур соотносящихся по конверсии слов. — Сб. “Словообразование и его место в курсе обучения иностранному языку”, вып. I. Владивосток, 1973.

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only operates with denominal verbs and deverbal nouns. As an illustration the conversion pair smoke n — smoke v may be cited. According to the Oxford English Dictionary some of the meanings of the two words are:

SMOKE я

1. the visible volatile product given off by burning or smouldering substances (1000)1 c) the act of smoke coming out into a room instead of passing up the chimney (1715)

SMOKE v

1.

intr. to produce or give forth smoke (1000)

'c) of a room, chimney, lamp, etc.: to be smoky, to emit smoke as the result of imperfect draught or improper burning (1663)

Comparison makes it possible to trace the semantic development of each word. The verb smoke formed in 1000 from the noun smoke in the corresponding meaning had acquired by 1663 another meaning by a metaphorical transfer which, in turn, gave rise to a correlative meaning of the noun smoke in 1715 through reconversion.

§ 21. Productivity.

Traditional

and Occasional Conversion

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 that can be represented as a succession of isolated actions from which nouns are easily formed, e.g. fall v — fall n; run v — run n; jump v — jump 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. However, a careful examination of modern English usage reveals that it is extremely difficult to distinguish between these two groups. This can be exemplified in such pairs as to invite — an invite, to take — a take, to sing — a sing, to bleed — a bleed, to win — a win, etc. The possibility for the verbs to be formed from nouns through conversion seems to be illimitable.

The morphological restrictions suggested by certain linguists are found in the fact that the complexity of word-structure does not favour conversion. It is significant that in MnE. there are no verbs converted from nouns with the suffixes -ing and -ation. This restriction is counterbalanced, however, by innumerable occasional conversion pairs of rather complex structure, e.g. to package, to holiday, to wireless, to petition, to reverence, etc.

Thus, it seems possible to regard conversion as a highly productive way of forming words in Modern English.

The English word-stock contains a great many words formed by means of conversion in different periods of its history. 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 cook, to love, to look, to capture, etc. The individual or occasional

1 The figures in brackets show the year of the first use of the word in the given meaning.

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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. These cases of individual coinage serve the given occasion only and do not enter the word-stock of the English language. In modern English usage we find a great number of cases of occasional conversion, e.g. to girl the boat; when his guests had been washed, mended, brushed and brandied; How am I to preserve the respect of fellow-travellers, if I'm to be Billied at every turn?

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: R. S. Ginzburg S. S. Khidekel, G. Y. Knyazeva, A. A. Sankin. A COURSE IN MODERN ENGLISH LEXICOLOGY. 1979

§ 20. Diachronic Approach of Conversion. Origin:

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