1.

Conversion
Conversion is the word formation process in which a word of
one grammatical form becomes a word of another grammatical
form without English
any changes to spelling or pronunciation. For example, the noun
email appeared in English before the verb: a decade ago I would
have sent you an email (noun) whereas now I can either send
you an email (noun) or simply email (verb) you. The original
noun email experienced conversion, thus resulting in the new
verb email. Conversion is also referred to as zero derivation or
null derivation with the assumption that the formal change
between words results in the addition of an invisible morpheme.
However, many linguistics argue for a clear distinction between
the word formation processes of derivation and conversion.
Noun to Verb Conversion
The most productive form of conversion in English is noun to
verb conversion. The following list provides examples of verbs
converted from nouns:
Noun – Verb
access – to access
bottle – to bottle
can – to can
closet – to closet
email – to email
eye – to eye
fiddle – to fiddle
fool – to fool
Google – to google
host – to host
knife – to knife
microwave – to microwave
name – to name
pocket – to pocket
salt – to salt
shape – to shape
ship – to ship
spear – to spear
torch – to torch
verb – to verb
For example:

My grandmother bottled (verb) the juice and canned (verb) the

pickles.
My grandmother put the juice in a bottle (noun) and the pickles
in a can (noun).
She microwaved (verb) her lunch.
She heated her lunch in the microwave (noun).
The doctor eyed (verb) my swollen eye (noun).
Noun to verb conversion is also referred to as verbification or
verbing, as humorously discussed by Calvin and Hobbes.
Verb to Noun Conversion
Another productive form of conversion in English is verb to
noun conversion. The following list provides examples of nouns
converted from verbs:
Verb – Noun
to alert – alert
to attack – attack
to call – call
to clone – clone
to command – command
to cover – cover
to cry – cry
to experience – experience
to fear – fear
to feel – feel
to hope – hope
to increase – increase
to judge – judge
to laugh – laugh
to rise – rise
to run – run
to sleep – sleep
to start – start
to turn – turn
to visit – visit
For example:
The guard alerted (verb) the general to the attack (noun).
The enemy attacked (verb) before an alert (noun) could be
sounded.
Sometimes one just needs a good cry (noun).
The baby cried (verb) all night.
We need to increase (verb) our productivity to see an increase
(noun) in profits.
Verb to noun conversion is also referred to as nominalization.

Other Conversions
Conversion also occurs, although less frequently, to and from
other grammatical forms. For example:

adjective to verb: green → to green (to make environmentally

friendly)
preposition to noun: up, down → the ups and downs of life
conjunction to noun: if, and, but → no ifs, ands, or buts
interjection to noun: ho ho ho → I love the ho ho hos of
Christmastime.
6. Conversion. Different views on conversion. Semantic
relations within converted pairs.
Conversion (zero derivation, affixless derivation) is the
formation of words without using specific word-building
affixes.

The term conversion was introduced by Henry Sweet in his New

English Grammar. First cases of conversion registered in the
14th c. imitated such pairs of words as love, n – love, v (O.E.
lufu, n – lufian, v) for they were numerous and thus were
subconsciously accepted as one of the typical language patterns.

Approaches to the study of conversion:

conversion as a morphological way of forming words (Prof.
Smirnitskiy);
conversion as a morphological-syntactic word-building means
(Prof. Arnold);
conversion as a syntactic word-building means (a functional
approach);

Semantic Relations in Conversion Verbs converted from nouns

(denominal verbs) denote: action characteristic of the object,
e.g. dog (n) – to dog (v); instrumental use of the object,
e.g. ​screw (n)
– to screw (v);acquisition or addition of the object, e.g. fish (n) –
to fish (v);time, e.g. winter (n) – winter (v);deprivation of the
object, e.g. dust (n) – dust (v).
Nouns converted from verbs (deverbial nouns) denote: instance
or process of the action, e.g. dance (v) – dance (n); agent of the
action, e.g. help (v) – help (n); place of action, e.g. walk (v) –
walk (n);object or result of the action, e.g. peel (v) – peel (n).

Other Ways of Conversion

Adjective > Noun, e.g. a bitter, a wet, a regular etc.;
Adjective > Verb, e.g. to dirty, to calm, to empty etc.;
Noun > Adjective, e.g. a stone wall, a cotton cloth etc.;
Modal verb > Noun, e.g. a must;*
Function word > Noun, e.g. too many ifs and buts;
Function word > Verb, e.g. to down, to up etc.;
Affix > Noun, e.g. There are too many ologies and emes in his
report
17.Non-productive ways of word-formation.
Back-formation (regressive derivation) is the derivation of new
words by subtracting a real or supposed affix from existing
words (often through misinterpretation of their structure), e.g. an
editor > to edit, enthusiasm > to enthuse etc.
The earliest attested examples of back-formation are a beggar >
to beg; a burglar > to burgle; a cobbler > to cobble.
The most productive type of back-formation in present-day
English is derivation of verbs from compounds that have either
–er or –ing as their last element, e.g. sightseeing > to sightsee;
proofreading > to proofread; mass-production > to mass-
produce; self-destruction > to self-destruct; a baby-sitter > to
baby-sit etc.
Onomatopeia (Gr. onoma ‘name, word’ and poiein ‘the make’)
(sound imitation, echoisms) is the formation of words by a more
or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with an object
producing this sound.

Semantic classification of onomatopeic words:

sounds produced by people: to babble, to chatter, to giggle, to
grumble, to titter, to grumble etc.;
sounds produced by animals (to moo, to neigh, to mew, to purr
etc.), birds (to twitter, to crow, to cackle etc.), insects and
reptiles (to buzz, to hiss);
water imitating sounds: to bubble, to splash etc.;
sounds imitating the noise of metalic things: to clink, to tinkle
etc.;
sounds imitating a forceful motion: to crash, to whisk, to clash
etc.
Sound-interchange is the gradation of sounds occupying one and
the same place in the sound form of one and same morpheme in
various cases of its occurrence.
Historical causes of sound-interchange:
ablaut (vowel gradation), i.e. a change of one to another vowel
accompanying a change of stress, e.g. to ride – a road; to bear –
a burden; to bite – a bit etc.;
umlaut (vowel mutation), i.e. a partial assimilation to a
succeeding sound, e.g. full – to fill, a tale – to tell etc.;
consonant interchange, e.g. to speak – a speech, to bake – a
batch, to live – a life etc.
2.Minor types of word formation

1) Shortening is the process and the result of forming a word out

of the initial elements (letters, morphemes) of a word
combination.
Shortenings are produced in 2 ways:
To make a new word from a syllable (rarer two) of the original
words. The latter may lose it’s beginning (telephone – phone,
defence — fence), it’s ending (holidays – hols, advertisement-
ad), or both the beginning and the ending (influenza – flu,
refrigerator — fridge)
To make a new word from the initial letters of a word group:
U.N.O – United Nation Organization, B.B.C. and etc.
2) Blending is the process of combining parts of two words to
form one word. Blends (blended words, blendings, fusions) are
formations, that combine 2 words, and include and include the
letters or sounds, they have in common as a connecting element.
E.g. Smog=smoke + fog
3) Sound-imitation is formation of words from sounds that
resemble those associated with the object or action to be named
or that seem suggestive of its qualities.
The words of this group are made by imitating different types of
sounds that may be produced by animals, birds, human beings
and inanimate objects. Sounds produced by the same kind of
animals are frequently represented by different sound groups in
different language:

​ ussian
R ​English
Dogs ​Гавкать, Выть. ​Bark, Howl
Cock ​Кукареку ​Cock-a-doodle-doo
Cats ​Мяу ​Mew, Miaow
Cows ​Мууу ​Moo, Low
Frog ​Ква ​Croak
Duck ​Кряк ​Quack
The sound of the verbs to rush, to dash, to flash, may be said to
reflect the brevity, swiftness and energetic nature of their
corresponding actions.
4) In Reduplications new words are made up by doubling a
stem, either without any phonetic changes as in buy-buy or with
a variation of the root-vowel or consonant as inping-pong, chit-
chat (the second type is called gradational reduplication).
5) Back-formation is the derivation of new words by subtracting
a real or supposed affix from existing words through
misinterpretation of their structure. In these cases the verb was
made from the noun by subtracting what was mistakenly
associated with the English suffix “-er”. In the case of the verb
to beg and to burgle the process was reversed: instead of a noun
made from a verb by affixation (as in painter from to paint), a
verb was produced from a noun by subtraction.
6) Sound-interchange is a change of a phoneme in a morpheme
resulting in a new lexical meaning. The process is not active in
the language at present.

E.g. Song – to sing, food – feed.

7) Some homographic, and mostly disyllabic nouns and verbs of

Romanic origin have adistinctive stress pattern. The stress
distinction is neither productive nor regular.

E.g. ’Conduct (n) (behavior) – con’duct (v) (to lead or guide in a

formal way).