Synchrony and Diachrony of Conversion in English

Exam. No 6720647

MSc English Language

The University of Edinburgh

2010
 <Table of Contents>

List of Abbreviations and Symbols i

List of Figures and Tables ii
Abstract iii

1. Introduction 1

2. Types of Conversion in English 3

2.1. Major Types of Conversion 3

2.1.1. Adjective > Noun 4

2.1.2. Noun > Adjecitve 4
2.1.3. Noun > Verb 5
2.1.4. Verb > Noun 5
2.1.5. Adjective > Verb 6

2.2. Minor Types of Conversion 7

2.2.1. Adverb > Adjective 7

2.2.2. Adjective > Adverb 8
2.2.3. Noun > Adverb 8
2.2.4. Adverb > Noun 9
2.2.5. Verb > Preposition 9
2.2.6. Verb > Adjective 10
2.2.7. Other Rare and Special Types of Conversion 10
 2.3. Summary 12

3. Standard Questions on Conversion 13

3.1. The Problem of Directionality 13

3.1.1. The History of the Language 14

3.1.2. The Semantic Complexity 14
3.1.3. The Inflectional Behaviour 15
3.1.4. Stress Shift 15
3.1.5. Frequency 17

3.2. Different Views on a Definition of Conversion 17

3.2.1. Zero-Derivation 17
3.2.2. Other Viewpoints 20

3.3. Syntactic Approach of Conversion 21

3.4. Productivity 25

3.5. Summary 26

4. Historical Approaches to Conversion 27

4.1. Stem Formation to Word Formation 27

 4.2. Conversion in Old English 28

4.2.1. Evidence of Zero-Morpheme in Old English 28

4.2.2. Conversion in Old English 29

4.3. Conversion in the Middle English Period 30

4.4. Conversion in the Early Modern English Period 31

4.4.1. Conversion to Noun 31

4.4.2. Conversion to Verb 32
4.4.3. Conversion to Adverb 32

4.5. Summary 33

5. Conclusion 34

Bibliography 36
 List of Abbreviations and Symbols

Abbreviations

adj. Adjective
N Noun
V Verb

Symbols

> becomes, changed to

* Unattested form
- attach to

i
 List of Figures and Tables

Tables

<Table 1> Comparison of Two Types of Construction made up of Two Words

<Table 2> Inflectional Paradigm of Old English Strong Nouns
<Table 3> Declensional Endings for Each Gender of Strong Nouns

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Abstract

Conversion is one of the very productive means of forming new words in English morphology. It
is a derivational process that includes no overt marking; i.e. there is no difference in the form even
though the lexical category of the word has changed from one class to another.

The main goal of this thesis is to provide a critical and informative analysis of conversion in
English throughout distinct time periods and try to explain the problems that are left unanswered
regarding this topic. There are two main approaches that are going to be presented in this research,
such as synchronic analysis on conversion in the first part, and then a historical perspective will be
examined in the second part of the research.

For the synchronic analysis, in addition to representing the types of conversion in Present-Day
English in greater detail, many controversial questions raised on conversion in English will be
thoroughly investigated with numerous examples explicated; there are four main problems that are
raised in this linguistic field, namely the problem of directionality, the problem of definition of
conversion, syntactic approach of conversion, and the issue of productivity. The purpose of this part of
study is to outline a number of different linguistic theories that has been proposed on conversion.

In addition to this, a historical perspective of conversion in English will be examined as a

diachronic approach of analysis. The word formation process of conversion has been present for
centuries in the language (Biese 1942). Little attention has been drawn on conversion historically.
Apart from the fact that there have not been many studies in this linguistic area, the purposes of this
diachronic study are to deliver instructive, unified and meticulous descriptions on conversion with a
great deal of comprehensive historical exemplifications and also to be able to trace, with confidence,
the practicable and more reliable explanations to the essential questions that arise. I will divide this
part into four sub-sections, namely conversion in Old English, conversion in Middle English, and
conversion in Early Modern English, and manipulate the instances of conversion in each period and
find out how the morphological process; i.e. conversion, evolved which hopefully shed insights on
rather practical and explicative answers to the problems of conversion.

iii
 Chapter 1

Introduction

Conversion is a non-concatenative process; i.e. derivation without affixes, which is also one of the
very productive means of forming new words in English morphology. It is a derivational process that
includes no overt marking; i.e. there is no difference in form even though the lexical category of the
word has changed from one class to another. According to Dalton-Puffer (1992), the fact that
conversion is a productive process reflects on two prospects: speakers of English prefer invariable
base forms, 1 and English is tending to become a more isolated language. Some examples of
conversion in English are shown below:

(1) Types of Conversion in English

a. Noun > Verb
a bottle > to bottle, the water > to water, a hammer > to hammer
b. Verb > Noun
to call > a call, to guess > a guess, to spy > a spy
c. Adjective > Verb
better > to better, empty > to empty, open > to open
d. Adjective > Noun
poor > the poor, crazy > a crazy, blind > the blind
(Plag 2003: 107-108)
e. Marginal cases:
i) Phrase-compounds
a forget-me-not, a has-been, a must-see
ii) Function words (Prepositions) : up, down etc
Robin climbed up the hill.
We’ll have to up all the prices again.
We all have our ups and downs
(Bauer 2003: 328)

There are several types of conversion: noun to verb, verb to noun, adjective to verb, as well as

1
According to Dalton-Puffer (1992: 469), this is also proved by the declining umlaut nouns.
1
marginal types of conversion such as phrase-compounds and other kinds, like prepositions. As can be
seen in the data above, each pair of words is derivationally linked, and they are exactly the same in
their phonetic realisations.
Although conversion appears to be simple, there are a variety of problems regarding conversion.
Thus, the aim of this study is to provide a theoretical and informative analysis of conversion in
English throughout distinct time periods. There are two main approaches that are going to be
presented in this study; namely synchronic and diachronic approaches. For the synchronic analysis, in
addition to representing the types of conversion in Present-Day English in greater detail, many
controversial questions raised on conversion in English will be thoroughly investigated with
numerous examples explicated. According to Bauer and Valera (2005), there happen to be two groups
of questions confronting conversion, namely standard problems and so-called „unexpected‟ problems.
Standard problems are the unsolved and uncertain ones that have been examined for a long period of
time so that these questions always resurface whenever there is a discussion on conversion, such as
different considerations on the definition of conversion, directionality and the varied approaches on
conversion such as syntactical analysis. On the other hand, there are also some other new problems
which were not expected before: for example, the questions of typology, the distinction between
word-formation and figurative extension, and the question of the extent to which the meaning of
conversion is predictable. For the purpose of this study, I aim to analyse only the standard questions
that arise on conversion for this research and to depict them coherently.
In addition to this, a historical perspective of conversion in English will be examined as a
diachronic approach of analysis. The word formation process of conversion has been present for
centuries in the language (Biese 1942). Little attention has been drawn on conversion historically.
Apart from the fact that there have not been many studies in this linguistic area, the purposes of this
diachronic study are to deliver instructive, unified and meticulous descriptions on conversion with a
great deal of comprehensive historical exemplifications and also to be able to trace, with confidence,
the practicable and more reliable explanations to the essential questions that arise.
The organisation of this thesis is as follows. This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter 1
introduces general ideas of conversion and objectives of this research. Chapter 2 briefly deals with the
types of conversion in English. Chapter 3 reviews the standard questions that arise on conversion and
illuminate different views on the problems by diverse scholars. Chapter 4 surveys conversion in
earlier days of English and draws attention to the supportive and critical evidence of fundamental
questions on conversion. Lastly, chapter 5 gives a summary of this thesis.

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 Chapter 2

Types of Conversion in English

This chapter introduces different types of conversion in Present-Day English with regards to the
clear distinction of lexical categories; i.e. „parts of speech‟ as already shown in (1). Every lexical item
has its own word-class; therefore, words can be easily grouped together by virtue of their various parts
of speech; for example, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions.
In contrast, some argue that there are rather fuzzy boundaries between each of the word classes,
making it quite unreasonable to classify all the elements. However, it is inevitable to speak of word-
class when discussing conversion, since conversion is strictly the change of one word category into
another word category. Thus, it is sensible and important to differentiate words that are involved in the
derivational process of conversion centred on lexical categories.
In this chapter, two main types of conversion in English to a different word-class are considered in
detail below; so-called major and minor types.

2.1. Major Types of Conversion

The major types of conversion consist of three main traditionally known word-classes; that is nouns,
verbs, and adjectives. These are said to be the most common types of English conversion. Due to the
purpose of this section, which is to provide a short description of the cases of conversion in English,
only the prototypical characteristics of each lexical category are considered here, despite the fact that
there are no clear-cut boundaries between the parts of speech. Nouns are normally defined as lexical
items denoting persons, objects and animals. They mostly function as subject and object, but they can
sometimes be used as modifiers, too. Usually, distribution of nouns is preceded by articles, both
definite and indefinite, and number inflection and genitive inflection are applied to nouns. The
definition of verbs is normally in reference to actions or activities, and the prime function of verbs is
as predicates. Number, tense, modality, and person inflections are used with verbs. Adjectives
function as modifiers and also can be modified by adverbs, and their typical meanings are referring to
properties of people or things. There are two inflections that can be applied to adjectives, comparative
and superlative attaching either suffixes or more/ the most.

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 2.1.1. Adjective > Noun

This part is concerned with the adjectives that shift to nouns, and according to Balteiro (2007: 79),
this type of conversion is often found in the literature. Examples of deadjectival noun conversion are
illustrated below in (2):

(2) Examples of Adjective > Noun Conversion

a. the poor, the good, the rich, the false, the true, the incredible
b. the Spanish, the Danish, the British
c. the accused, the taught, 700 wounded, 200 killed
d. intellectual, facial, musical, capital, curve
(Balteiro 2007)

In general, those examples shown in (2a-d) have sense in relation to people or special groups of
people; i.e. sense of collectivity. The adjectives in (2a) are converted into nouns because they are in
the position that nouns usually occupy, that is after definite article „the‟. (2b) also has the same
structure as (2a), used with definite article „the‟, and the adjectives are denoting nationality or the
group of nationality. The adjectives in (2c) are also used as nouns, but the adjectives are participial-
adjectives. Lastly, the adjectives in (2d) are transferred to a new word class, to nouns, without any
syntactic or morphological phenomena like (2a-c).
However, this type of conversion is very controversial. Many scholars do not believe that they are
derivational cases of conversion; rather, they are regarded as a result of syntactic phenomena. Some
also state that such lexical elements can belong to a number of parts of speech at the same time. This
issue will be discussed more comprehensively in the next chapter.

2.1.2. Noun > Adjective

In contrast to the section above, nouns may also be placed in the position of adjectives, and
function as modifiers of other nouns. Examples of this type of conversion are demonstrated in (3):

(3) Examples of Noun > Adjective Conversion

: government official, stone wall, air passage, and zero modification
(Balteiro 2007)

As shown in (3), government, stone, air, and zero fill in the attributive and pronominal position;

4
thus, it is likely to say they are denominal adjectives. Nevertheless, in the same way as 2.1.1, this
analysis is also at issue; some declare that this is a derivational process, but others insist that it is odd
to name government, stone, air, and zero adjectives. Likewise, this matter will be dealt with in the
following chapter.

2.1.3. Noun > Verb

This section presents noun to verb conversion in English. Examples of this type of conversion are
shown below in (4):

(4) Examples of Noun > Verb Conversion

a. captain, father, hammer, saw, dock, bottle
b. pressure, brainstorm, eye-witness, headquarter, runway, motorcycle, freefall
c. MC, KO
(Balteiro 2007)

(4a) deals with the most productive conversion in noun to verb conversion. It is the shift of simple
nouns to verbs. The meaning of the converted verbs is chiefly dependent on the meaning of the nouns.
Kastovsky (1989: 199) suggests that if the nominal base represents a person, the definition of
denominal verbs is “act as N”, such as captain or father; if the base element refers an instrument, then
the derivative form is defined as “performing some appropriate verbal action with or as with N”, for
instance hammer and saw; and if the base form designates a place, the definition of the converted
element would become “go, be, put into/in N”, such as dock and bottle. (4b) stands for the conversion
from either suffixed nouns or compounds to verbs. The verb to pressure is an outcome of conversion
from the suffixed noun pressure; brainstorm becomes a verb from the abstract noun form; and eye-
witness is a result of conversion from the common person noun. There are also special cases of noun
to verb conversions, which are conversions from acronyms or truncated words. Gonzalez (1987: 145)
points out that noun to verbal acronym conversion is very common. For instance, the noun MC, which
stands for master of ceremonies, becomes to MC (to emcee), the noun KO, which stands for knock out,
converts into to KO.

2.1.4. Verb > Noun

As with the previous section of noun to verb conversion, verbs also can undergo the conversion
process from verbs to nouns. In accordance with Balteiro (2007: 106), this type of conversion is

5
comfortably derived instantly for expressive purposes, and the conversions may or may not enter the
language. Semantically deverbal nouns may indicate state, event/activity, object of V, subject of V,
instrument of V, manner of V-ing, and place of V. These instances are exemplified in (5a) respectively:

(5) Examples of Verb > Noun Conversion

a. desire, hit, answer, coach, wrap, walk, retreat
(Quirk et al. 1985: 1560)
b. a call-down, a hold-up, a mix-up
(Kennedy 1920: 47)

In the same manner as from noun to verb conversion, different kinds of verbal bases may convert
into nouns, namely simple verbs, as shown in (5a), derived verbs, and compounds. (5b) illustrates the
phrasal constructions made of verbs and adverbs forming into nouns, a call-down denoting a
reprimand, a hold-up meaning a robbery, and a mix-up designating a muddle.

2.1.5. Adjective > Verb

When adjectives become nouns, the results of this type of conversion acquire all the proper
inflectional and morphological features of verbs, like tense, person, and modal inflections.
Semantically, for the most part, meaning of verbs is altered to “to make (more) adj.” or “to become
adj.”, which indicates causative or inchoative interpretations (Adams 1973: 50-51). Such examples are
indicated in (6):

(6) Examples of Adjective > Verb Conversion

a. to round, to square, to thin, to dry, to clean
b. to smooth out, to sober up, to calm down
(Balteiro 2007)

Sometimes, when adjectives are converted to verbs, the verbs then attach to a particle and form
phrasal verbs, and instances of this case are included in (6b).
Quirk et al. (1985) suggest that it is significant to point out that conversion of adjectives to verbs
has a low productivity in English for a number of reasons. For the most part, it is due to competition
against verbal suffix –en, in that there already exists the suffixed form of verbs. Therefore,
corresponding adjectives cannot convert into verbs since it would violate the Principle of Economy,
such as black - to blacken, sad - to sadden, deaf - to deafen.

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 2.2. Minor Types of Conversion

In this section, other types of conversion will be introduced in brief, including the word-classes
such as adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and phrases.

2.2.1. Adverb > Adjective

The key characteristic of adjectives is that it precedes nominal units to function as an attribute.
Hence, if a lexical element from other parts of speech is in the position of the pronominal slot, it
would be sufficient to say that the word in question underwent the derivational process of conversion
and resulted as an adjective. For example, adverbs may also be placed in that position, such as nightly
in the nightly troop (Balteiro 2007: 90). Likewise, Allerton (1982: 81) also explains that adverbs
should be regarded as adjectives, because they may be substituted by adjectives. For example:

(7) Examples of Adverb > Adjective Conversion

a. The difficult part is learning the new computer codes- after that it‟s all downhill.
b. The difficult part is learning the new computer codes- after that it‟s all easy.
(Valera 1994: 125)

In sentence (7a), downhill is considered a deadverbial adjective, and this is possible because the
word downhill can be substituted by the adjective easy.
In contrast to this syntactical and distributional analysis of conversion, morphologically, it can be
said that it is one of the many adverbs that happens to be used in precedent of nouns, since there are
no variable forms such as gradable inflectional endings.
In addition to this, there is further evidence making the conversion from adverbs to adjectives
remain questionable. For instance, the lexeme friendly can be interpreted as either an adjective or and
an adverb. Under the assumption that such conversion has taken place, there must be directionality; i.e.
one must be the base form and the other must be the derivative. However, historical evidence
indicates that the adverbial friendly and adjectival friendly are distinguishable to two clear parts of
speech, such as the adjective freondlic, and the adverb freondlice in the Old English period. Since
there was a great deal of loss of inflection in the earlier period, the inflectional ending was lost, which
led it to be identical in its form (Valera 1994). According to Valera (1999), adverb to noun conversion
is impossible to be documented because the two lexical categories are morphologically similar and
share comparable inflections and the periphrastic construction.
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 2.2.2. Adjective > Adverb

In the same way that adverbs may occupy the adjective position, adjectives may also be used
syntactically in the adverbial slots and also be semantically similar.

(8) Examples of Adjective > Adverb Conversion

: bitter cold, wide open
(Balteiro 2007)

This type of conversion is also controversial in grammatical analysis. Some scholars state that bitter
and wide in such construction as in (8) are adjectives because of their morphology, while there are
other scholars focused on syntax who notes that bitter and wide are adverbs. Quirk et al. (1985: 406,
1560) suggest that those cases are part of conversion, while Kruisinga (1932: 119) argues that there
are a great deal of words which are both available as adjectives and adverbs. Furthermore, Nevalainen
(1993: 139) claims that the adverbial suffix –ly is dropped very frequently in modern English,
especially in informal style; therefore, this suffix is truncated due to the Principle of Economy, which
means that bitter and wide are adverbs with truncated suffix –ly.
It is very clear to see that minor types of conversion, which include adjectives and adverbs, are all
explicable by other grammatical analyses due to their identical characteristics. It seems that even
though there is such type of conversion in English, it would be very difficult to prove to be true.

2.2.3. Noun > Adverb

Kennedy (1935: 324) states that in spite of the fact that there is still uncertainty to whether such
conversion from noun to adverb exists, he views home in the sentence (9a) as the converted form of
an adverb, because it denotes the direction.

(9) Examples of Noun > Adverb Conversion

a. I am going home
b. I am going towards home
(Kennedy 1935: 324)

Furthermore, syntactic analysts purport that since there is no determiner in front of the word home,

8
and as the word home may be substituted by other adverbial expressions such as there, it is reasonable
to state that home is an adverbial element (Dawkins 1964: 37). Along with this, Valera(1994: 117)
proposes further supporting evidence that such a word like home in (9a) can be modified by an
intensifier like right, and Larson (1985) also believes that any nominal unit can be seen as an
adverbial phrase.
In contrast to the preceding, some scholars declare that this type of conversion results from the
syntactical phenomenon of ellipsis. For example, they think that sentence (9b) is the underlying
structure, but as the preposition towards has dropped, the sentence has turned out to be as (9a).

2.2.4. Adverb > Noun

There is also conversion from adverbs to noun. For example:

(10) Examples of Adverb > Noun Conversion

: ups and downs, just this once, to and fro
(Balteiro 1997)

Kennedy (1935: 323) argues that this is a case of adverbs acting fully as nouns, since newly derived
nouns take on inflectional endings; and syntactically as a deadverbial noun accompanies a modifier, in
the case of just this once in (10), this also proves that adverbs can convert into nouns. Yet, there are at
least some cases in which this type of conversion can be explained by ellipsis of element.

2.2.5. Verb > Preposition

Although there is no clear distinction between these lexical categories in this circumstance, and
there is still doubt about this type of conversion, and lastly some argue that this is a process of
grammaticalisation, verbs and participial forms of verbs may convert into prepositions causing verb to
preposition conversion. Such examples are illustrated in (11):

(11) Examples of Verb > Preposition Conversion

a. past, during, barring, including, notwithstanding, concerning, regarding, according to
b. owing to, considering, failing
(Balteiro 1997)

As specified by Kortmann and König (1992: 687-688), this kind of converted preposition can be

9
divided into two main groups; namely, frequent expressions and less frequent ones. (11a) exemplifies
the frequent expressions of space, time, exception, inclusion, concession, topic/respect, and accord
respectively. (11b) shows less the frequent group, including the meanings of cause, condition,
means/instrument, and lack/absence. In addition, Kennedy (1935: 325) accounts deverbal prepositions
as secondary prepositions.

2.2.6. Verb > Adjective

Reversely, despite the fact that there are competing suffixes that derive verbs from adjectives, the
deadjectival verb conversion is said to be a more productive process than verb to adjective conversion.

(12) Examples of Verb > Adjective Conversion

a. He was the person frightening us all
b. He was very frightening
c. time that has elapsed
d. elapsed time
e. a leaf that has fallen
f. a fallen leaf
(Szymanek 1988: 39, Pinker 1994: 396)

(12a) is a sentence that exemplifies the verb in participle form, frightening, and when this element
underwent conversion to adjective, it developed as in the sentence (12b). Pinker (1994) states that
there is a restriction in this kind of conversion; that is, such conversion can take place from only
intransitive verbs to adjectives. To be more specific, the participle form of intransitive verbs, such as
frightening, elapsed, and fallen in (12), which denotes change of state, derives adjectives. Thus, the
clause (12c) time that has elapsed resulted in (12d) elapsed time, and the phrase (12e) a leaf that has
fallen is consequent on (12f) a fallen leaf.
Contrary to this view, some express that while there is no overt morphological indication of such
conversion, this type cannot be included in the derivational process; however, syntactical evidence
and a few cases of possible gradable inflection could be a source of less questionable judgement.

2.2.7. Other Rare and Special Types of Conversion

In this section, other types of conversion, which are rare and special, are represented with
exemplifications.

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 (13) Examples of Other Types of Conversion
a. An up-in-the-air feeling
b. Directly he noticed this he hurried down, I never see wasps without I recall Devon-dear
c. His argument contains too many buts, to have a down on someone
d. Patriotism, nationalism, and any other isms you’d like to name
e. a forget-me-not, a has-been, a must-see
f. They downed tools in protest, she will off and do her own thing, I must up
g. to round, to out, to up, to down
h. encore, hurrah, shoo, If you uh-uh again, I won’t go on with my story
(Balteiro 2007 79-109)

(13a) illustrates the conversion from phrases to adjective. It happens when phrases have a function
of nominal modification which are also placed in the attributive position; i.e. the precedent of nouns.
Some grammarians refer to this conversion as downgrading conversion (Tournier 1985). (13b) is a
quite uncommon case of conversion, which is from adverbs or prepositions to conjunctions. Even
though it hardly possible to produce evidence of this conversion, due to no morphological indication
of shifts in word-class, Kruisinga (1927: 108) expresses it as a component of conversion. (13c) shows
the case from particles, such as preposition or conjunction etc., to nouns. The conjunction but has
become a noun with plural inflectional endings in sentence (13c) his argument contains too many buts,
and the preposition down turns out to be a noun with the definition of grudge as indicated in the
phrase in (13c) to have a down on someone. (13d) is the so-called upgrading conversion, in
accordance with Tournier (1985). This is when affixes derive into nouns; however, there is a fuzzy
boundary in this case between conversion and lexicalisation, which is in need of further research. (13e)
displays phrase/sentence to noun conversion. To use Tournier (1985)‟s terminology, this type of
conversion is named as downgrading conversion. The phrase/sentence is reduced to one-word status
(Adams 1973: 55). Despite the possibility that the phrase/sentence is posited in the prototypical slot of
nominal units, some consider this type of conversion as simple compounding. (13f) exhibits the
instances of conversion when nouns are derived from adverbs. However, there is also an opposing
opinion of this type; namely, shortening or omission of a verb that is modified by the adverb. (13g)
exemplifies the conversion from preposition to verb; however, it is quite hard to distinguish
preposition to verb conversion from adverb to verb conversion as shown in (13f). Lastly, similar to the
preceding conversions, such as prepositions, Adams (1973) mentions that expressions of interjection
may go through conversion and shift to verb as shown in (13h).

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 2.3. Summary

In this chapter, a variety of types of conversion has been represented with a few examples. The
different types have been divided into two groups of major and minor conversion, depending on the
lexical categories that words are converted from and into. Traditionally known as the main word-class,
words such as nouns, verbs and adjectives belong to this major group, and others are included in the
minor types. Almost all types of conversion may also be explained with different approaches,
especially those in the minor groups; i.e. it is not ascertained to prove that the conversion has taken
place between the same forms of two lexemes unless there is an overt morphological indication, such
as taking on the inflectional behaviour of new forms. Many cases are in demand of further research;
however, the main purpose of this research is to introduce each type of conversion in brief.

12
 Chapter 3

Standard Questions on Conversion

This chapter investigates standard questions on conversion; there are four main problems that are
raised in this linguistic field, namely the problem of directionality, the problem of definition of
conversion, syntactic approach of conversion, and the issue of productivity. The purpose of this part of
study is to outline a number of different linguistic theories that has been proposed on conversion.

3.1. The Problem of Directionality

At first glance of the forms of a pair of words that are evidently related by the process of conversion,
speakers cannot be certain which word is derived from which base word, so they must rely on their
intuition.
Kiparsky (1982) claims that synchronically, noun to verb conversion and verb to noun conversion
take place on separate levels in a level-ordered morphology; i.e. the lexical stratification model. Verb
to noun conversion occurs on stratum I, and noun to verb conversion occurs on stratum II, which
implies that the former process is more productive than the latter, and verb to noun conversion can
also lead to another noun to verb conversion, as in to sur‟vey > a „survey > to „survey; and to pro‟test
> a „protest > to „protest (Bauer and Valera 2005: 12).
There is also another point suggested by Lieber (1981) asserting that conversion is not a directional
process; in other words, the members of conversion pairs are listed in the lexicon separately. For
example, we regard the verb to bottle to be derived from the noun a bottle. In contrast to this view,
according to Lieber‟s analysis, the new form of bottle is re-listed in the lexicon, belonging to a new
category of verb. This means that she views the two related words as having a non-derivational
relationship and they are linked lexically by a „non-directional redundancy rule‟.
Bauer and Valera (2005) propose two primary approaches for judging directionality in conversion;
synchronic and diachronic approaches. The diachronic approach uses historical evidence as a basis
and manipulates the etymological information to determine which word is the base and which is the
derivative (as in Biese 1941). The other approach, the synchronic one, analyses the semantic relation
between the pair of words (as in Marchand 1963, 1964). They also conclude that the problem of
determining directionality remains, but the issue with directionality suggests a problem with the
definition of conversion as a morphologically derivational process, not just a parallel link between
two lexemes.
13
 Five possible ways to determine the directionality of conversion have been suggested in Plag
(2003); history of the language, semantic complexity, inflectional behaviour, stress shift and frequency,
all of which will be reviewed in the following.

3.1.1. The History of the Language

This is the very clear and simple way to decide the directionality, using The Oxford English
Dictionary to see which word was attested first. For instance,

(14) Demonstration of Conversion with First Appearance Date in Oxford English Dictionary
a. bicycle (1868) > to bicycle (1869)
ski (1885) > to ski (1893)
b. to clown (1599) > clown (1600)
to crowd (AD 937) > crowd (1567)
(Adams 1973: 40-41, Plag 2003: 108)

Obviously, speakers assume that the verbs „to bicycle‟ and „to ski‟ are more likely to be evaluated as
derived forms from the nouns „bicycle‟ and „ski‟, and this is well confirmed by the date of their first
appearance in The Oxford English Dictionary as shown in (14a). In contrast, the verbs „to clown‟ and
„to crowd‟ seem to be derived from the nouns „clown‟ and „crowd‟ according to our present-time
intuition, which is similar to the examples in (14b), but the historical evidence goes against our
intuition, and the vast majority of speakers of English are not aware of the historical knowledge and
lack a memory of all words that are involved in conversion; this highlights the weakness of relying on
historical attestation. Even though the history of the words does not provide a solution to the
directionality question, it cannot be ruled out; it still could be one of the reliable methods of finding
the route of conversion.

3.1.2. The Semantic Complexity

Generally, the meanings of the derived forms are semantically more complicated than their base
words, since there is a parallel coherent inference between conversion and affixation; i.e. affixes
usually add an additional sense when they are attached to their bases, and this principle applies
comparably to the process of conversion. Therefore, if one of the two related words can be analysed
as being more complex in its semantics than the other one or if one member is semantically resting on
another member, then there is good evidence that the dependent word is the derivative (Plag 2003).

14
For example, the definition of the deverbal noun call is „the act of calling‟, and the definition of the
deadjectival verb to better is „to make or become better‟. In these cases the meaning of the derived
words are more complex than the base words, and the derivatives rely on their first members in their
interpretation, i.e. the verb „to call‟ and the adjective „better‟ respectively, which means that in order
to define the derived forms, the concept of the base forms must pre-exist. This apparently indicates to
a certain extent that the semantic relationship between the pair of words is predictable, but the extent
to which the meaning of the derived member in the process of conversion is predictable is in need of
further clarification.

3.1.3. The Inflectional Behaviour

In accordance with Plag (2003), the derived verbs have regular past-tense forms. For instance:

(15) Demonstration of Inflectional Behaviour in Conversion

the past-tense form of the converted verb „to ring‟ ( < „a ring‟, noun to verb conversion)
to „ring‟ – to „ringed‟ -> provide with a ring
(*rang -> * provide with a ring)

The verb with regular inflectional forms „to ring‟ is the outcome of noun to verb conversion,
whereas another homophonous verb form of „to ring‟ which has the irregular past-tense inflectional
behaviour, „to rang‟, cannot be a member of the converted words. This phenomenon is due to the
“nature of irregular inflection” (Plag 2003: 109). All the word-forms with irregularities must be
learned in the process of language acquisition in order to store them in the speakers‟ lexicon;
otherwise other forms could be produced within the regular behaviours. Thus, the new words, which
are not stored in the lexicon yet as entries, have regular inflection. Consequently, as a general rule, it
can be stated that converted verbs should be inflected regularly, and this fact helps us reach a
conclusion about the directionality: if a verb-noun pair underwent conversion, and if the verb has a
regular inflection, then this is a powerful indication that the regular inflected form is derived from the
other one. In addition to this, parallel reasoning can be applied again as in the previous section; i.e. for
the reason that the derivational suffixes are never inflectionally irregular, the outcome of the
conversion never inflects irregularly.

3.1.4. Stress Shift

As shown in the data in (16a) and (16b) below, the change in stress pattern can be another feature

15
that is relevant for the resolution of the directionality.

(16) Examples of Stress Shift in Conversion

a. to tormént – a tórment
to permít – a pérmit
to constrúct – a cónstruct
to extráct – an éxtract
to abstráct – an ábstract
b. to gèt awáy – a gét awày
to lèt dówn – a lét dòwn
to pùll dówn – a púll dòwn
to pùsh úp – a púsh ùp
to wàlk óver – a wálk òver
(Plag 2003: 110)

The verbs in (16a) have the stress on their last syllable while their converted nouns have the initial
stress. Likewise, the phrasal verbs in (16b) have the primary stress on the prepositions, whereas their
derived noun forms have the primary stress on the first elements. Thus, it is reasonable to note that the
phonological changes, such as stress shift, occurred where there is conversion; for instance, in the
cases in (16), the verbs are modified by accentuation in the process of derivation into nouns.
Marchand (1969: 377) also states that the reposition tendency of stress relies on the lexical categories
of the base element in conversion; that is, the stress pattern would be different depending on whether
the underived form is a noun or a verb. In addition to this, Kiparsky (1982: 12) notes that the contrast
between stress arrangement in denominal verbs and deverbal nouns that underwent the process of
conversion, can account for the directionality of conversion; in other words, the difference in stress
pattern may assume that some nouns are derived from verbs and some verbs are derived from nouns.
Furthermore, in accordance with the Lexical stratification model, as mentioned above, the distinction
in stress position produces evidence of verb to noun conversion taking place in stratum I and noun to
verb conversion taking place in stratum II. Hence, as stratum I has a non-neutral stress pattern, the
stress shift to initial syllable occurred in deverbal nouns, such as sur’vey – ’survey. In contrast, the
phonological rule of stratum II in the lexical stratification model is stress neutral, which means there
is no change in stress pattern. Therefore denominal verbs have initial stress, such as ’pattern –
’pattern. To conclude, it can be observed that stress shifts take place only on deverbal converted
nouns.
Unlike the preceding views, Plag (2003) points out that the stress shift is an overt marking of the

16
prosodic property even though it is not visible in orthography, and on that account, this stress shift
feature should be regarded as prosodic morphology, not according to the criteria that determines the
directionality of conversion. Further, Lieber (1981: 124) expresses that for the most part, derivational
morphology deals with word formation, whereas morphological conversion with identical phonetic
realisations is concerned with word shaping.

3.1.5. Frequency

In most cases, there is a strong tendency for the converted words to be less frequent in their usage
than the base words. For instance, it is shown that only 7 -able derivative forms out of 92 –able forms,
which were extracted from the British National Corpus, had a higher frequency than their base words,
and among the 102 derivative words of –ize forms, only 11 –ize forms had a higher frequency than
their base words (Plag 2002). This circumstance can be explained by the semantics of conversion; if
one is being semantically more complex, then it is prone to have a limited range of meaning, which
leads to the situation where it cannot be used in diverse texts; that being the case, the more
complicated one, i.e. the converted word, is generally the less frequently used form. For example, the
verb to water is less frequent than the noun water, and this indicates that the verb is the derivative,
which solves the directionality problem on conversion.

3.2. Different Views on a Definition of Conversion

This section deals with one of the mainstream methods of analysis on conversion which has been
studied continuously. Broadly, the different views on conversion can be divided into two perspectives;
those that belong to the process of word-formation and those that are not included in the course of
word-formation, or even as outside morphology. Firstly, the view on „zero-derivation‟, which is
another preferred term over „conversion‟, will be observed, and other perspectives on conversion will
be described in the second part in this section.

3.2.1. Zero-Derivation

Some scholars see the conversion operation as a process of affixation and assume that it is
analogous to other derivational processes of affixation. Jespersen (1942: 85) states that the
phenomenon of conversion would be preferable to say that one lexical element, for example a verb, is
formed from another word, such as a substantive, with a suffix zero.

17
 Strang (1968) presents zero-derivation as one of the five subtypes of word formation, on the same
level with compounding, prefixation, suffixation, and backformation, which presumes the zero
derivation as a separate type of word formation. She sees conversions as new emergences which are
syntagmas by means of the distinct features of their grammatical phenomenon, whereas other kinds,
like compounding and affixations, are comprised of sequences of morphemes.
Furthermore, Marchand (1969) also uses the terminology of „zero-derivation‟, and he expresses that
he does not protest against the term „conversion‟; however, he regards „conversion‟ as a denotation of
the syntactic transposition of a word; i.e. it is no more than a grammatical matter, and it corresponds
to a systematic syntactic pattern, not word-formation and derivation. Additionally, he also proposes
that the term „zero-morpheme‟ is simply justified when it is matched by a pronounced form; i.e. the
zero-suffix can only stand if there is a correlated overt marking suffix, which has the same meaning or
function, in other cases, such as cash-ø ~ atom-ize (Marchand 1969: 360). This assertion is known as
“overt analogue criterion” (Sanders 1988).

(17) Demonstration of Overt Analogues Criterion

a. I‟ll answer that again : This is my final answer
b. I‟ll announce that again : This is my final announcement
c. answerv : [answerv ø]N = announcev : [announcev ment]N
(Sanders 1988: 156)

Basically, analogy underscores in this case that in the same way that the noun announcement is
derived from the noun announce by adding the phonic noun-forming suffix –ment, as shown in (17b),
the noun answer is derived from the verb to answer by the addition of the non-overt form, i.e. zero
suffix, as in (17a) and the analogical process is demonstrated in (17c). This condition is labelled as
“over analogue criterion” (Sanders 1988:156), which is to posit a zero suffix only if there is a non-
zero suffix around in the same function.
Nonetheless, there are a number of critical and empirical problems that arise for such condition.
First of all, in the case of conversion into verbs, it is questionable whether such a verbal deriving affix
exists, which has the exact same sense as zero-affix. For example:

(18) Demonstration of Types of Meaning for Conversion into Verbs.

type of meaning paraphrase example
locative „put (in)to X‟ jail
causative „make (more)X‟ yellow
inchoative „become X‟ cool

18
 performative „perform X‟ counterattack
instrumental „use X‟ hammer
(Plag 2003: 112)

The idiosyncratic meaning of the examples illustrated above in (18) display the situation where the
“overt analogue criterion” (Sanders 1988: 156) is not satisfied. Not one of the overt verb forming
affixes of English can convey such extensive meanings. Plag (2003) also mentions that suffixes like –
ate, -ify, and –ize denote much more limited extent of meaning than conversion, and also there are
additional cases with more distinctive meanings.
To examine the issue more closely, denominal verb to eel means „to fish for eel‟ or „to move like an
eel‟, and another denominal verb to crew can denote „act as a member of crew‟ or „assign to a crew‟.
However, there are no overt verb-deriving affixes available in English, representing such range of
meanings. Correspondingly, in the case of verb to noun conversion, the meanings of overt nominal
suffixes and conversion are not identical. Therefore it contradicts overt analogue criterion; for
instance, although it is not clear to compare meanings between overt nominal suffixes, such as –ation,
-al, -ing, -ment, and the derived nouns through conversion because of the tendency for action nouns
happens to be polysemous, Centanrowska (1993: 113) has introduced two systematic differences
between converted nouns and –ing suffix derived action nouns, such as draw and drawing, beat and
beating. First, if the base form is a transitive verb, the derived form with suffixation can refer to all
senses of the base verb, which means that the noun drawing denotes any activity related to drawing,
while the definition of the converted noun draw can only refer to the drawing of cards or lots.
Secondly, when the base form of verbs can be both transitive and intransitive, the different effects are
exhibited. The derived nouns with suffixation will have the sense of the transitive usage of the verb,
whereas the conversion will have a reference of the intransitive usage of the verb, such as the beating
of the prisoner and the beat of my heart. Likewise, regarding conversion from adjective to noun, it is
stated in the previous chapter (2.1.1.) that the meaning of adjective to noun conversion denotes
collectivity; i.e. people of a group of people. The overt suffixes that contain the definition of
collectivity are –dom, and –hood; nonetheless, they are denominal suffixes. Other deadjectival
suffixes like –ness, and –ity do not result in the same meaning as conversion, rather they refer to states
or properties. Hence, this shows the resistance of the analysis of overt analogue criterion. Finally, with
regard to conversion from adjective to verb, there are some cases in which the range of meaning of
converted nouns is greater than the basic meaning of causative and inchoative when the verbs are
derived from adjectives. For example, the converted verb to young is defined as „to present the
apparently younger side‟ according to The Oxford English Dictionary, yet there are no such suffixes
that refer to the same sense. Thus, this final case of adjective to verb conversion confirms that overt

19
analogue criterion is not attested in all cases of conversion.
As a consequence, although the overt analogue criterion can be usefully explained for the
identification of zero derivation, it is not sufficient enough to analyse such recognition in all cases of
zero affixation.
The theory of zero derivation is advantageous in that it can assemble the derivational process into
one central mechanism of affixation, which is a perspicuous, consistent and elegant way for
delineation. In contrast, the term zero-morpheme gives the impression of being too abstract and it
violates the definition of morpheme, which is the fundamental unit of morphology containing form
and meaning, in the sense that there is no overt form. Moreover, Bauer and Valera (2005) express that
because of the concept of derivational zero, this analysis is presently out of favour.

3.2.2. Other Viewpoints

There are some alternative viewpoints on conversion other than zero-derivation, some of which are
even assumed not to be within the realm of morphology; in other words, it is regarded that conversion
is not a derivational process.
According to Lieber (1981, 1992), implicit transposition such as conversion is not a morphological
or grammatical operation but the outcome of coinage, which is a process that lies in the domain of
language use and entails pragmatic details. In other words, the same form of a word is stored in the
lexicon, i.e. listed lexeme, but it has different information as to its lexical category than its primary
one. This is called relisting analysis. In other words, conversion takes place when an element that is
already stored in the lexicon is re-entered as a member of a different lexical category. This relisting
analysis is different from zero-derivation, since there is no need to add new endings. Thus, this new
interpretation of conversion is advantageous in a way because conversion may be explicable without
the addition of anything new. Moreover, unlike the morphological process forming new words
unintentionally, coinage is a deliberate and purposeful process, and Lieber (1992) claims that speakers
are conscious when they make use of converted forms. Nevertheless, Plag (1993) notes the vagueness
of intentionality in that speakers differ in their awareness when they use their language, so the claim
by Lieber(1992) might be problematic to evaluate.
The analysis of „Functional Shift‟ as category underspecification has been pointed out by Farrell
(2001) recently. In this theory, the main assumption is that the syntactic structure plays an important
part in meaning. To give an example, the word hammer, which is traditionally recognised as a pair of
words that underwent the word formational process of conversion such as the noun hammer and the
verb to hammer, has underspecified lexical semantic representation associated with the part-of-speech
category; i.e. the verb and noun distinction, and this meaning of the verb and noun is assigned when it

20
appears either in the verb or the noun slot on the surface level. That is to say the lexical category
distinction, for instance whether the word in question is a noun or verb, is not located in the words
themselves; it is not an inherent feature of words. This means that Farrell (2001)‟s new approach to
conversion does not require a word-formation rule or any derivational process that relates nouns and
verbs; this explains the identical morphological forms between nouns and verbs, thus no need to have
an overt derivation.
Along with the ideas of Functional Shift and Relisting, there is another form of analysis which
views conversion as a process of figurative extension (Twardzisz 1997, Neef 2005), which is an
approach of cognitive linguistics. Yet there is a problem with this proposal in that the majority of
cases of figurative extension remain within the same lexical category, for example conversion
between mass noun and count noun, and intransitive verb and transitive verb, though it would again
depend on the notion of the word-class; i.e. how narrowly a word-class is to be defined (Bauer and
Valera 2005). Moreover, I have already noted that the secondary conversion is not dealt with in this
study, which figurative extension mostly concerns.

3.3. Syntactic Approach of Conversion

It has been argued by many scholars that the process of conversion is a matter of a syntactic
process rather than word-formation. According to Bauer (1983) and Farrell (2001), conversion is
using a word, which is assigned within a given syntactic category, in a syntactic position; in other
words, it is straightforwardly putting a word in a slot of a syntactic category.
Bauer (1983) sees the change in word-class as a minor issue because it happens frequently and
without any difficulty. For example, there are such types of changes between countable and
uncountable nouns (tea, goat > two teas, a slice of goat), proper nouns and common nouns (John >
Which John do you mean?), intransitive verbs and transitive verbs (to run > He is running a horse in
the Derby), and there is also a case where non-gradable adjectives are regularly used as gradable
adjectives (French > She looks very/more French). However, most of these instances occur within a
given domain, i.e. within a same word-class, which is widely known as secondary conversion. As so-
called change of secondary word-class exceeds the scope of this study, greater extensive and
exhaustive treatment for this would be designated for further research in the near future.
There are some circumstances in which the adjective in question undergoes the process of
conversion, resulting in a noun. Adjectives usually appear both in attributive and predicative position.
For example, for the word „stone’ in stone wall, stone can be grammatical both attributively (stone
wall) and predicatively (The wall is stone); however, it is not straightforward to say that stone is an
adjective, and it went through the derivational process of conversion. Furthermore, there is no clear
21
lexical category classification on the first element of the words because it can either be a noun, which
makes stone wall a compound word, or it can be said that stone is the denominal adjective. Thus, there
is a controversy involved in this syntactic judgment on conversion, and this circumstance chiefly
depends on how an adjective is defined.

(19) stone wall

a. Is „stone‟ a denominal adjective? Therefore, is „stone wall‟ a result of conversion? , or
b. Is „stone wall‟ a Noun + Noun compound?

In support for (19a), as indicated above, stone occurs in the attributive position as well as in the
predicative position, which is the main feature for adjectives. Secondly, it is generally noted that
compounds have fore stress, which means that its first element bears the major stress. However, stone
wall requires major stress on the second element, which is the phrase stress, and this indicates that
stone wall is a syntactic construction; therefore, stone underwent conversion from noun to adjective.

<Table 1> Comparison of Two Types of Constructions made up of Two Words

First elements Second elements
stone, silver wall
steel, plastic bridge
wooden, golden etc.
leaden, woollen

<Table 1> demonstrates two kinds of more or less similar constructions made up of two words.
First elements consist of lexical items both without any suffixes, and with suffixation. The second
elements include nouns. It is certainly the situation that the second parts of the first elements are
adjectives since –en suffix is an adjectival suffix. If both types of constructions are compared in
parallel, it is understandable to purport that the words without any suffixes should belong to the
lexical category of adjectives.
On the top of that, although it is difficult to distinguish between nouns and adjectives
synchronically, there might be supporting evidence of adjectival element stone diachronically. With
reference to The Oxford English Dictionary, the suffix –en attaches to nouns to form adjectives
denoting “pertaining to, of the nature of”; i.e. it is mainly applied to express the material of which
things are composed. This suffix existed in the Old English period, and broadly added in Middle
English to derive new forms. However, since there was a tendency in loss of inflectional endings such
as suffixes, especially from the sixteenth century on the –en adjectival suffix, most of –en complexed

22
forms became obsolete and scarcely survived until the Present-Day English. A few instances are
exemplified in (20):

(20) Historical Development of stone, golden, silver in pronominal position

a. stæ nen > stenen > stonen > stone
b. gylden > golden
c. silfren > silver

(20a-c) illustrates the historical development of stone, golden, and silver. Loss of the –en suffix led
to identical forms of certain nouns and adjectives. This implies that even though stone in stone wall
seems to be in the same form as a noun, it could be the case that it was and still is an adjective to a
certain extent.
Finally, the compounds are said to be listed in the lexicon because the meaning of the compounds
are usually non-transparent, which signifies that the meanings of compounds are hard to predict. Since
it is quite puzzling to say such examples in (3)2 are stored in the lexicon with idiosyncrasy in
meaning, it does not necessarily assure that the first elements are nouns.
Nonetheless, in support for (19b), a number of grammarians argue that the cases like stone wall are
the compound, because stone behaves as a noun. Apart from the fact that stone can act attributively as
well as predicatively, stone does not satisfy the other prototypical characteristics of adjectives. Firstly,
stone does not inflect for degree: in other words, it does not have the comparative and the superlative
forms, such as *stoner, *the stonest. Secondly, adjectives are usually modified by adverbs like quite or
very, but it is not feasible to modify stone using such adverbs. Thirdly, according to Ljung (1970: 186),
adjectives may allow germination, that is, repeating construction of the adjective, which is very
unlikely to occur with stone wall.
Additionally, for the case of government official in (3), government cannot be an adjective due to
the Principle of Economy, since there exists another corresponding form, such as governmental
official. Thus, Marchand (1969) does not acknowledge conversion in these circumstances, but he
relegates this incident as “transposition”.
Moreover, let us refer back to the examples of adjective > noun conversion, which are exemplified
in the previous chapter in (2).

(2) Examples of Adjective > Noun Conversion

e. the poor, the good, the rich, the false, the true, the incredible

2
(3) Examples of Noun > Adjective Conversion
: government official, stone wall, air passage, and zero modification
(Balteiro 2007)
23
 f. the Spanish, the Danish, the British
g. the accused, the taught, 700 wounded, 200 killed
h. intellectual, facial, musical, capital, curve
(Balteiro 2007)

It is easy to realise that this case is a somewhat special type of conversion, which requires the
definite article the, and this makes some cases of conversion more syntax-like. For instance, despite
its distribution circumstances, poor in (2a) is still said to be an adjective. The evidence of it being an
adjective is: first, the lexical item poor cannot be inflected for number, such as *the poors vs. musicals
in (2d), secondly, it cannot co-occur with an indefinite article even though it has to accompany a
definite article to be reckoned as an outcome of conversion, such as *a poor vs. a capital in (2d).
Thirdly, poor can be modified by adverbs, and this is the prototypical feature of an adjective, for
example, the comparatively poor. Lastly, the poor can be inflected in comparative forms and
superlative forms, such as the poorer, and the poorest respectively. In (2b), there are two reasons to
argue that they are not converted nouns but still adjectives: in order to denote people or a special
group of people, it is not possible use an adjective with an indefinite article, but only with a definite
article, such as the Dutch, not *a Dutch, or use a phrase such as Dutch people. More importantly,
there are corresponding nouns for the Dutch and the Spanish; they are Danes and Spaniards. It would
be uneconomical to have two elements referring to the exact same object (Balteiro 2007).
It is important to note that the examples in (2c) are claimed as a syntactic phenomenon of ellipsis
by some authors, not a result of conversion; in other words, ellipsis is manipulated in syntactic
simplification. Therefore, the cases in (2c) do not involve creation of new words. Kennedy (1935: 318)
gives an explanation of this case as a temporary nominal usage of an adjective which is a response to
a communicative need. Consequently, when the communicative need is no longer required, the lexical
items change back to their usual function as adjectives.
However, Adams (1973: 19) acknowledges that if the truncated nouns; i.e. the head nouns, have the
general meanings like people or person, such as in the examples in (2c), it is probable to term them
conversion. In addition to this, Marchand (1969: 361) states that these mentioned ellipsis phenomena
have obtained full independence, which means that the word in question is no longer an outcome of
omission of a noun. It became a nominal element in its own right. For example, the originally
adjectival word stimulant is now completely accepted as a noun, and some speakers do not even
realise that it was ever converted from an adjective.
Nevertheless, Plag (2003) suggests that the words must have clear category specification and the
syntactic rule must be aware of the categorical information of a word in order to serialise the words
accurately, but it does not have access to the word-category due to the Lexical Integrity Principle;

24
syntax cannot change words‟ lexical categorical properties.
Another significant feature that could distinguish the conversion as a morphological process is the
idiosyncratic meaning; that is non-compositional semantics. It is well-known that the meaning within
the category of syntax is predictable due to compositionality except with idioms. However, as it is
mentioned in instances (6), some converted verbs seem to have lexicalised meanings, which indicates
that conversion is more lexical; i.e. morphological in nature.
To conclude, it seems that drawing a line between conversion, i.e. the morphological approach, and
a syntactic approach is dependent on one‟s theoretical framework.

3.4. Productivity

The last question on conversion is about its productivity. It is widely-known that conversion is a
very free process in English word-formation. However, there are partial restrictions which are raised
by Marchand (1969), specifically the „blocking effect‟ on derived nouns such as arrival; to illustrate,
the derived noun arrival will not convert the verb arrive and vice versa.
It is also interesting to note that, according to Putseys (1989), noun to adjective conversion mostly
affects material nouns; thus brick in brick garage is recognised as conversion while milk in milk bottle
does not qualify as an adjective.
Additionally, there is a case where even though all the words in (21) belong to a category indicating
„weather‟, only winter and summer are feasible for conversion.

(21) Examples of Weather Lexemes under the Converison

winter – to winter
summer – to summer
spring - * to spring
autumn - * to autumn

It is also important to note a further limitation on conversion; content words cannot convert into
function words, such as adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions, whereas function words can easily
become content words like nouns and verbs, and this is exemplified in (1e.ii). In addition, Nevalainen
(1992) also mentions that the main restriction of conversion is that contents words cannot become
function words, whereas function words are not so constrained Therefore adverbs, conjunctions,
prepositions and even pronouns are free to convert into nouns and verbs.
All derivational processes have some restrictions applied in the formation of new words. Bauer and
Valera (2005) state that as conversion is considered a morphological process, it should be no different.
25
Hence, there should be some restrictions too. Jovanovic (2003) proposes several constraints, in
particular, which are semantic in origin to a great degree, and he also cites ambiguity problem. In
addition, he mentioned in his article that in spite of the restrictions, conversion contributes extensive
opportunities for the creation of new lexemes, and the most fascinating aspect is that there is
remarkable possibility for lexical enrichment and development in the word formation mechanism in
the English language.

3.5. Summary

In chapter 3, the problematic views of conversion that arise are examined. First, regarding
conversion as a derivational process from one lexical unit to another, there exits directionality in the
process. Directionality can be determined by five ways, as Plag (2003) suggested, such as the history
of language, the semantic complexity, the inflectional behaviour, stress shift and frequency. Each
means of deciding the directionality of conversion was introduced with its limitation.
Different scholars have different opinions on conversion, especially on how to define such process.
Jespersen (1942), Marchand (1969) and Sanders (1988) are in favour of zero-derivation; that is, they
acknowledge the existence of zero-morphemes and explain conversion as one of the derivational
processes with affixation. However, this simplification of analysis is not always met, including the
case of overt analogue criterion (Sanders 1988). Other viewpoints of conversion, for example,
functional shifts, relisting, and figurative extension have been introduced briefly.
In addition to this, the syntactic approach of conversion, which considers conversion as a
syntactical phenomenon, has been dealt with in this chapter, along with the restrictions in productivity
of conversion.

26
 Chapter 4

Historical Approaches to Conversion

As specified before, conversion has been a productive means of a derivational process in Word-
Formation since the Old English period. As English has gone through drastic change over time, it is
also true that conversion has likewise undergone considerable changes.
Conversion in the domain of the history of English appears to be a rather under-researched area.
Thus, in this chapter, I will try to outline the cases of conversion in the earlier days of the English
language, including Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English. For the first part of this
chapter, the change in the typology of conversion, which is from stem-formation to word-formation,
and the historical evidence of zero-morpheme will be presented on a basis of Old English data. Then
conversion in the Middle English period and Early Modern English period will be exposed to view.

4.1. Stem Formation to Word Formation

The phenomenon of conversion in Old English appears to be more probable to be named as „stem-
conversion‟. The examples in (22) prove that the process in English was developed from stem-
conversion to word-conversion.

(22) Demonstrations of Conversion in Old English

a. Early Germanic verb/noun Structure.
base stem-formative inflectional ending

stem
* naz + j (=/i/) + d+a „to save‟

*spriŋg + a + z „spring‟

(Kastovsky 2005: 42)

b. V (Verb stem + ø + infinitive ending -an) > N

drincan „to drink‟ – drinc „drink‟,
wealdan „to rule, govern‟ – weald ‟power‟
weardian „to guard‟ – weard „guard‟
27
 (Faiss 1992: 64-65)

In contrast with Present-Day English, which has very little nominal and verbal inflection endings
so that conversion usually takes place without any intervention of an overt morphological marker,
conversion in Old English would be marked for category identification by the inflectional affixes; i.e.
stem-formatives (Dalton-Puffer 1992). Hence, (22a) displays the representative construction of Early
Germanic morphology for both nouns and verbs. As Old English still had the remnant properties of
Germanic languages, the structure in Old English persisted in being the same when deriving
conversion as displayed in (12b). Then, in the course of the Middle English period, most of the
inflectional endings were lost, including the rich stem allomorph of Old English, which led to the
circumstance where free lexemes take on the base form of such derivation. On top of that, Biese (1942)
argues that the occurrence of conversion grows with the loss of inflection in English.

4.2. Conversion in Old English

4.2.1. Evidence of Zero-Morpheme in Old English

One of the great advantages of looking into aspects of historical conversion, especially in the Old
English period, is that there is rather explicit evidence of zero-affix.

<Table 2> Inflectional Paradigm of Old English Strong Nouns

Example of Strong Noun Declension

CASE Masculine Neuter(long stem) Feminine
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
3 4 5
Nominative stan stanas word word+ø sorg sorga

Accusative stan+ø stanas word+ø word+ø sorge sorga/sorge

Genitive stanes stana wordes worda sorge sorga

Dative stane stanum worde wordum sorge sorgum

<Table 3> Declensional Endings for Each Gender of Strong Nouns

3 Old English stan means stone in Modern English

4 Old English word means word in Modern English
5 Old English sorg means sorrow in Modern English
28
 Example of Strong Noun Declension
CASE Masculine Neuter(long stem) Feminine
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative - -as - - - -a
Accusative - -as - - -e -a/-e
Genitive -es -a -es -a -e -a
Dative -e -um -e -um -e -um

From the tables above, it is easy to recognise that there are affixes in all cases of inflectional
paradigms in Old English words except nominative cases, which are default cases. However, in the
case of the strong masculine noun „stan‟, and neuter noun „word‟, there is no overt change in the
accusative singular case from the nominative singular case; i.e. default case, even though there has
been change in cases, whereas there is an overt marking suffix for the feminine noun „sorg‟, when it
changes from the nominative case to accusative case. Thus, it can clearly be presumed that there is a
zero-form of affix, in particular zero-suffix, which derives „stan‟, and „word‟ from nominative case to
accusative case.
Furthermore, on the basis of this prototype, it can be said that the analogical reasoning underlies the
domain of word formation, which denotes that the zero element in morphological marking does exist
in the derivational process. Let us look at overt analogue criterion (Sanders 1988) from chapter 3.
Sanders (1988) argues that zero-derivation of conversion is manifested if there is a corresponding
overt derivational suffix that has the same meaning. If we apply these fundamentals in the Old English
data, displayed in tables 2 and 3, even though there appears to be no morpheme when masculine and
neuter nominative nouns shift to accusative case, due to the parallel relationship to the feminine nouns,
which have the overt suffix indicating the accusative case, it is said to be that there is an
unpronounced morpheme, i.e. covert suffix, in the masculine and neuter noun, when changing cases.
Thus, the above Old English data does not only support the evidence of existence in zero-morpheme,
but also the Sanders (1988)‟s overt analogue criterion.

4.2.2. Conversion in Old English

The survey of Biese (1942) suggests that mostly verbs have undergone the conversion process and
a larger number of them are denominative verbs, which is illustrated in (23) below.

(23) Examples of Different categories on Conversion in Old English

a. Verbs derived from substantives (or nominal stems) 219 = c 54 %

29
 b. Verbs derived from adjectives or adverbs 127 = c 31 %
c. Substantives derived from verbal stems 61 = c 15 %

Total 4076
(Biese 1942: 20)

From the statistics in (23), it is quite clear to work out that the key feature of conversion in Old
English consists of great quantities of noun to verb conversions. Biese (1942: 20) explains this result
in a way that the lexical category of nouns contains the largest number of words in languages in
general, and the languages come back to these numerous nouns in order to form new verbs, which led
to the characteristic that denominal verbs are, in most cases, the main type of conversion until
Present-Day English. Comparatively, the type of conversion from adjectives or adverbs to verbs is
also fairly common in the Old English period, since it is shown from (23b) that about one-fourth of
the total amount of verbs is derived from adjectival and adverbial units. Moreover, a great deal of
these type of words were very common in Old English, and they have survived throughout the period
until Modern English. The least frequent type of conversion in the Old English period is conversion of
nominal units from verbal elements, as specified in (23c). Despite the fact that this kind of conversion
results relatively infrequently, some of the words are very common and have also remained until
Present-Day English, for example drink, ear, fight, hate, help, hold, lie, play, shape, shave, smell,
stand, stir, sting, tie, and win. It is important to note that the words that belong to this type are strongly
related to strong verbs, and due to the fact that strong verbs were very common lexemes in the
language, it is natural that the corresponding nominal elements were in demand.
Even though only some parts of Old English Conversion are examined in this study, there is still
evident confirmation that there is more practical and explicative research to be done in relation to
conversion.

4.3. Conversion in Middle English

An enormous amount of foreign words were borrowed in the Middle English period. Therefore,
new words were created by adopting the loan words, although there were still also a number of new
lexemes formed from already existing vocabularies.
There is evidence of conversion in Middle English from Marchand (1969)‟s work. Marchand (1969:
364-5) indicates that when French loan words were adopted, they remained to be foreign and did not

6
There are, in addition, about thirty words of unknown relations. (Biese 1942: 20)
30
convert as native stems, but after a while, the derivational process was applied. In addition to this, the
co-existence of nominal units and verbs borrowed eased zero-derivation, such as annoy (1230)7 - to
annoy (1250), account (1260) - to account (1303), and comfort (1225) -to comfort (1290).
Biese (1942) also mentions that the total number of conversions in the 13th century is significantly
in excess to that of the 12th century. The reason for this situation is rather natural since the 12th century
was the period of the Norman Conquest, which led to a downturn in literature. Thus, it is from the 13th
century onwards that conversion gains its importance in word formation.

4.4. Conversion in Early Modern English

As stated by Nevalainen (1992), conversion in Early Modern English is known as the third-most
productive word-formation process in the Early Modern English period. To illustrate, conversion from
nouns to verb, such as gossip, invoice, and lump, conversion of nouns from adjectives, such as ancient,
and invincible, and nouns to verbs conversion, such as invite, laugh, and scratch, are recognised as the
most common types of Early Modern English conversion.
Biese (1941) reveals that since 1650, derivation with suffixation had gained predominance of direct
conversion in French and Latin polysyllabic loan words, which proves that disyllabic and trisyllabic
borrowed words start to disapprove zero-derivation in Early Modern English.

4.4.1 Conversion to Noun

Concerning conversion to nouns, the main base forms are verbs and adjectives. There is a limitation
in the process of verb to noun conversion in this period: that is, it is very unlikely that the base forms
of verbs with loan suffixes, such as –ify and –ise, derive into converted nouns. In contrast, it is
common to convert from the native verbs, especially those with endings like –le, and –er, such as
glister, whisper, juggle and grumble (Biese 1941: 266-8). In addition, conversion from prefixed verbs
to nouns seems to be more typical in Early Modern English than in Modern English, for example,
betray, dismiss, enjoy and pretend. Nouns converted from verbs in the Early Modern English period
are usually originated from certain types of verbs, which are those that denote event, state, or activity.
In the Early Modern English period, converted nouns from adjectival elements can be
morphologically divided into three groups. The first one is nouns that have regular plural endings,
such as Christian, fluid, liquid and mortal. The second group consists of the elements that can be both

7
(1230) indicates the first year of appearance
31
singular and plural form, but marks without overt plural morphemes, for example, Japanese, Swiss
and Chinese. Lastly, the nouns which have no singular forms but regular plural forms belong to third
group and they are ancients, classics, and eatables (Nevalainen 1992: 427).

4.4.2. Conversion to Verb

In the majority of cases, conversion to verbs is originally from nouns, adjectives and particles, but
the majority of them are from nouns in this period. As specified by Biese (1941: 134-66), conversion
of derivatives from prefixes is generally limited, which means that verbs converted from negative
adjectives, such as unfit meaning „to make unfit‟, are said to be more productive in Early Modern
English than Present-Day English; nevertheless, most of them do not last long. Moreover, loan words
with suffixation are regarded as monomorphemic elements and converted into verbs.
Early Modern English attestations of noun to verb conversion reflect locative and instrumental
adverbial functions; locative denotes „to put in/on N‟ such as bottle, tub and coffin, and instrumental
means „to V with N‟ such as hand, net, and gun. The cases of the verb-object relation involving
ornative or privative object are typical in this period, for instance, brick (ornative „to put bricks on‟,
„to close up with brickwork‟) and bark (privative „to strip off the bark from a tree‟). There is also
verb-object complement relation takes place, which refers to convert something into N, but this
instance is rarer than other relations mentioned; for example, bundle as in “to make up into a bundle”.
Finally, it is standard of personal nouns to function as the stative subject complement function, which
means to be or act as N, such as butcher, rival, and umpire. According to Nevalainen (1992),
deadjectival verbs in conversion are less frequent in Early Modern English than noun to verb
conversion. Besides, there are a number of instances of conversion from locative particles to verbs in
this period, which includes about meaning to change the course of a ship, down meaning to bring
down, through meaning to carry through, under meaning to cast down, forward, near, and off.

4.4.3. Conversion to Adverb

In Early Modern English, there are two groups of adverbs that are derived as a result of conversion,
namely intensifiers and adverbs that are based on adjectives. It is important to note that the number of
intensifiers were hugely increased in this period compared to only a few derived from adjectives.
However, the adverbial suffix –ly gained more and more adverbial derivation towards the end of the
Early Modern English period. As well as intensifiers, adverbs denoting dimension, physical property,
speed and value also continue to form from adjectives, and exemplifications of this kind are bad,
blunt, cheap, dark and weak (Nevalainen 1992).

32
 4.5. Summary

In summary, the historical perspective of the derivational process of conversion has been
described in this chapter. As conversion has been a productive means of word formation since Old
English, a number of features of Present-Day English on conversion may have been traced back.
At the beginning of this chapter, the typological change in conversion over the period was
introduced; thus, as well as owing to Germanic characteristic of stem formation, referring to
inflectional affixes, and also due to the loss of inflectional endings in the course of the Middle English
period, conversion has undergone change from stem formation to word formation.
The declensional paradigm for nouns, which is used for submitting the evidence on the existence of
zero-morpheme as well as stating the overt analogue criterion by Sanders (1988), does make sense in
the diachronic perspective. Then, three main types of conversion in Old English have been
demonstrated on the basis of a survey from Biese (1942), namely denominal verbs, deadjectival or
deadverbial verbs and deverbal nouns.
Likewise to the preceding sections, the characteristics of Middle English were outlined in brief, and
then the illustrative information on the types of conversion by virtue of part of speech was presented
in the last part of this chapter.

33
 Chapter 5

Conclusion

In this thesis, I provided an informative study on conversion in English. There are two main
approaches that are presented in this research, namely the synchronic and diachronic approaches.
Many controversial questions raised on conversion in English are thoroughly investigated with
numerous examples given for the purpose of synchronic analysis. Then a historical perspective, such
as reviewing different types of conversion in distinctive periods, is presented.
Conversion is one of the very productive means of forming new words in English morphology. It is
a derivational process that includes no overt marking; i.e. there is no difference in the form even
though the lexical category of the word has changed from one class to another.
There are a number of different kinds of conversion in Present-Day English which can be divided
into the major types of conversion and the minor types of conversion. This distinction is based on the
parts of speech, as conversion is very closely related with change in lexical categories; i.e. if there is
no shift in the word-class in the derivation, there is no need to speak of conversion.
The major types of conversion include conversion between nouns, verbs, and adjectives, which are
traditionally recognised as main word categories. The rest of the lexical categories that are involved in
conversion belong to the minor type of categories, in which some of them are fairly rare and special.
However, when investigating each type with numerous exemplifications, the phenomena of
conversion can be explained by means of different application, which is dealt with in the following
chapter in more detail.
As stated by Bauer and Valera (2005), there seem to be two groups of problems confronting
conversion, namely standard problems and so-called „unexpected‟ problems. Standard problems have
been examined in this thesis, which include prospects on the definition of conversion, directionality
and the different approaches on conversion such as syntactical analysis.
First of all, directionality can be determined by five ways, as Plag (2003) presents, including the
history of language, semantic complexity, inflectional behaviour, stress shift and frequency. However,
there are constraints in each means of determining the direction of conversion. Secondly, scholars
assert different opinions on how to define conversion. For instance, Jespersen (1942), Marchand
(1969) and Sanders (1988) favour zero-derivation; that is, they acknowledge the existence of the
unpronounced suffix and explain conversion as one of the affixational derivations. However, this
point of view is not sufficient enough to explain all instances of conversion, including the case of
overt analogue criterion (Sanders 1988). Other viewpoints of conversion, for example, functional

34
shifts, relisting, and figurative extension have been introduced briefly.
In addition to this, the syntactic approach of conversion, which considers conversion as a
syntactical phenomenon, has been dealt with in this thesis, along with the restrictions in the
productivity of conversion.
As for the historical perspective, owing to the fact that conversion has exited for centuries in the
language (Biese1942), numerous characteristics of conversion were able to be traced back into Old
English. There has been a typological change in conversion from stem formation to word formation in
conversion since Old English because of the remnants of Germanic features of stem formation and
loss of inflection in Middle English.
Using the Old English noun data, the existence of zero-morpheme may be supported, including the
practicality of overt analogue criterion by Sanders (1988). Then, in accordance with Biese (1942)‟s
statistical survey, three major kinds of conversion in Old English have been shown; to put in orderof
frequency, they are denominal verbs, deadjectival or deadverbial verbs and deverbal nouns.
Additionally, the characteristics of Middle English were outlined in brief, and then the informative
analysis on the types of conversion was viewed in the last part of this chapter.
The purpose of this descriptive level of study is to be the starting point, i.e. the basis, for a more
profound level of research in the near future. As I have mentioned in this thesis, there is much
research to be done on conversion in English, such as the secondary changing of word class
conversion, and examining additional questions conducted on conversion, which are less standard
than the ones that I have addressed in this thesis, in addition to other new and unexpected questions in
this linguistic field. Furthermore, and most importantly, a more detailed and meticulous investigation
with a great deal of comprehensive historical exemplifications is required on the history of conversion,
since I have only touched upon the subject. Thus, one would be able to trace, with confidence,
practicable and more reliable explanations to the essential questions that arise on conversion.

35
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