Conversion

The problem of existing of conversion in Old English is a very contradictional one. In the Middle English period approximately before the XV-th century verb formation from nouns and adjectives was considerably reduced for the reason that a great deal of the French loan-nouns and loan-verbs appeared. But backformation, analogy and homonymy played a great role in the further development of conversion and soon (since the XVIII-th century) it became one of the characteristic features of English. Modern English vocabulary is exceedingly rich in conversional pairs. As the way of forming new words conversion is extremely productive and new conversion pairs make their appearance in fiction, newspaper articles, in the process of oral communication and in all spheres of human activity gradually forcing their way into the existing vocabulary and in the dictionaries as well. Conversion is non-affixal, morphological-syntactical way of word-building which leads to the morphological, lexical, semantic and syntactic changes of a derived word.

There are 5 patterns of conversion:

l. Noun > Verb (display, n > display, v; pin, n > pin, v; brake, n > brake, v);

2. Verb > Noun (slip, v > slip, n; call, v >call, n; walk, v > walk, n);

3. Noun >Adjective (lemon, n >lemon, adj; ice, n > ice, adj; nut, n > nut, adj);

4. Adjective >Verb (dull, adj > dull, v; narrow, adj >narrow, v; cool, adj > cool, v);
5. Adjective > Noun (tall, adj > tall, n; rich, adj > rich, n; dear, adj > dear, n).

Conversion is especially productive in the formation of verbs; it is, as a matter of fact, the principal way of forming verbs in Modern English. The XX-th century neologisms include a great many verbs formed by conversion, e. g. to can (=put into can); to microfilm (= produce a microfilm of); to motor (= travel by car); to phone (= use the telephone; to wire (=send a telegram), etc.

There are two types of conversion: complete (a word is included in a new paradigm and is characterized by new grammatical categories, accepts another syntactic function and a new lexical-grammatical meaning) and partial (at first a noun is formed by conversion from a verbal stem, and then this noun is combined with such verbs as: give, make, have, take and a few others to form a verbal phrase: to have a smoke; to take a walk; to give a ride)

The classification of lexical units according to the semantic relation in conversional pairs includes the following semantic relations, for example in the pattern N > V: 1. to do with N: to knife; to brake; to brush; 2. to put in / on N: to bottle, to bag, to can; 3. to be (act as) N: to captain, to witness, to nurse; 4. to make, change into N: to arch, to parcel, to knight.

The structural classification includes the following types of stems:

1. Simple (non-derivating) stems consisting of only one root morpheme which
is indivisible (a key, a mask, a glass, a mop, a wall);

2. Affixal (derivative) stems consisting of a root morpheme and one or more
affixal morphemes (a telegraph, a volunteer);

3. Compound stems consisting of two or more simple stems (side-track, v;
lushcarpet, v);

4. Abbreviation stems (V-8, UN).

Nevertheless there are factors which limit the productivity of conversion. They are:

1) The lexical meaning of the stem. In English there are verbs like sit from which converted nouns can’t be formed because an action denoted by the verb can’t be regarded as a number of single actions;

2) The structural peculiarities of the word. They can be explained by etymology and the main point is that units converted from compounds and acronyms are very rare.

3) The social need for a converted unit, i. e. the creation of a new word due to the language needs of social groups. The presence in language of noun-and-verb pairs in the language created by other ways of word-formation also limits conversion because such creation of parallel words isn’t aroused by the necessity and is not justified by a society. It is very important to take into account that not all the converted words are accepted by the language. There are the words which are created not for the needs of the society but for gaining new or oriental effect. E. g.: to rubbish somebody – „to assert persistently that whatever somebody says or writes is rubbish”; to host a luncheon – „to act as host at luncheon party”.

The analysis of conversional pairs in different historical periods has shown that conversion as one of the types of word-building was productive at every stage of development of the English language and it is still productive nowadays.

4. Syntactical word-building: Syntactic compounding

Syntactic compounding is the process of semantic isolation and structural integration of free word-groups. These words are formed from segments of speech preserving articles, prepositions, adverbs, etc. E.g.: forget-me-not, lily-of-the-valley, Jack-of-all-trades, good-for-nothing, man-of-war (военный корабль), pick-me-up, milk-and-water (безвкусный; безвольный), tongue-in-cheek (неискренний), mums-to-be, hit-or-miss (случайный, сделанный кое-как), stay-at-home, know-all, know-nothing, passer-by, son-in-law, cool-to-the-touch, melt-in-the-mouth, etc. This type belongs to syntactical way of word-building in English.

5. Minor types of word-building: Sound-imitation

The great majority of motivated words in present-day language are motivated by reference to other words in the language, to the morphemes that go to compose them and to their arrangement. Therefore, even if one hears the noun wage-earner for the first time, one understands it, knowing the meaning of the words wage and earn and the structural pattern noun stem + verbal stem + -er as in bread-winner, skyscraper, strike-breaker. Sound imitating or onomatopoeic words are on the contrary motivated with reference to extra-linguistic reality, they are echoes of natural sounds. Sound imitation (onomatopoeia or echoism) is consequently the naming of an action or thing by a more or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with it. It would, however, be wrong to think that onomatopoeic words reflect the real sounds directly, irrespective of the laws of the language, because the same sounds are represented differently in different languages. Compare the English word соск-a-doodle-do and the French cocorico. Onomatopoeic words adopt the phonetic features of English and fall into the combinations peculiar to it.

This becomes obvious when one compares onomatopoeic words crow and twitter and the words flow and glitter with which they are rhymed in the following poem:

The cock is crowing,

The stream is flowing,

The small birds twitter,

The lake does glitter,

The green fields sleep in the sun (Wordsworth).

The majority of onomatopoeic words serve to name sounds or movements. Most of them are verbs easily turned into nouns: bang, boom, bump, hum, rustle, smack, thud, etc. Sound-imitative words form a considerable part of interjections. Cf. bang! hush! pooh!

Semantically, according to the source of sound, onomatopoeic words fall into a few very definite groups. Many verbs denote sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or in expressing their feelings: babble, chatter, giggle, grunt, grumble, murmur, mutter, titter, whine, whisper and many more. Then there are sounds produced by animals, birds and insects, e. g. buzz, croak, crow, hiss, honk, howl, moo, mew, neigh, purr, roar and others. Some birds are named after the sound they make, these are the cuckoo, the whipoorwill and a few others. There are also verbs imitating the sound of water such as bubble or splash, and others imitating the noise of metallic things: clink, tinkle.

R. Soutliey’s poem “Does the Water Come Down at Lodore?” is a classical example of the stylistic possibilities offered by onomatopoeia: the words in it sound an echo of what the poet sees and describes.

Here it comes sparkling,

And there it lies darkling...

Eddying and whisking,

Spouting and frisking,

And whizzing and hissing,

And rattling and battling,

And giggling and struggling,

And bubbling and troubling and doubling,

And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,

And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping...

And thumping and pumping and bumping and jumping,

And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing...

And at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,

And this way the water comes down at Lodore.

Once being coined, onomatopoeic words lend themselves easily to further word-building and to semantic development. They readily develop figurative meanings. Croak, for instance, means „to make a deep harsh sound^”. In its direct meaning the verb is used about frogs or ravens. Metaphorically it may be used about a hoarse human voice. A further transfer of meaning makes the verb synonymous to such expressions as „to protest dismally”, „to grumble dourly”, „to predict evil”.

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