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Конверсия
Московский
Педагогический Колледж № 12
Курсовая
работа
Тема: ''Способы словообразования
английского языка.
Конверсия ''
Студентки III курса
Отделения начальных классов
с английским языком
Постниковой А.С.
Научный руководитель:
Лакомова
Е.В.
Москва 1999 г.
Contents.
II. Theoretical part:
1) Affixal word formation.....................
2)Conversion..................
VI.
Appendix II……….………………………..
Introduction.
The theme of my course-paper is 'Word-formation. Conversion'. At the first part of the work I've wrote some lines about the term 'word' as the smallest independent unit of speech. Next, there is the definition of the field of word-formation. At the following part you can find some information about the affix word-formation of nouns, verbs and adjectives. The next part named 'conversion'. Where the terms 'conversion' and 'zero-derivation' are examined which are the synonyms for some linguists. It is necessary to mention here about productivity and 'conversion as syntactic process'. Under the headline 'zero-derivation' it is possible to read about derivation connection between verbs and nouns (substantives), zero-derivation with loan-words. The next item is zero-derivation as specifically English process.
In the practical part I've analysed two courses: Russian by Vereshchagina, Pritykina and foreign one 'Magic time'.
The
term "word".
The
term "word" should be defined. It is taken to denote the smallest
independent, indivisible unit of speech, susceptible of being used in
isolation. A word may have a heavy stress, thought, some never
take one. To preceding the 'infinitive' never has a heavy stress, but
it is a word as it can be separated from the verbal stem by an adverb
(as in to carefully study). A composite may have two heavy stresses
so long as it is not analyzable as a syntactic group. There is a marked
tendency in English to give prefixes full stress thought they do not
exist as independent words. Indivisible composites such as arch-enemy,
crypto-communist, unlucky, therefore
are morphological units whereas combination, like stone, wall, gold
watch, are syntactic groups. As for the criterion of indivisibility,
it is said that the article a
is a word as IT can interpolate words between article and substantive
(a nice man, a very nice man, an exceptionally gifted man). But a
as in aglitter can't be separated from
the verb stem with which it forms a group and therefore is not a free
morpheme (word). With regard to the criterion of usability, it must
not be assumed that all words can be used by themselves, in isolation.
It is in the very nature of determiners like the article the
to be used in conjunction with the word they determiners.
Definition
of the field of word-formation.
Word-formation
is that branch of the science of language which studies the patterns
on which a language forms new lexical units, i.e. words. Word-formation
can only treat of composites which are analyzable both formally and
semantically. The study of the simple words, therefore, insofar as it
is an , unmotivated sign, has no please in it. It is a lexical
matter. A composite rests on a relationship between morphemes though
which it is motivated. By this token, do-er, un-do, rain-bow
are relevant to word-formation, but do, rain, bow are not.
Conversion.
Conversion is the change in form class of a form without any corresponding change of form. Thus the change whereby the form napalm, which has been used exclusively as a noun, came to be as a verb (They decided to napalm the village) is a case of conversion.
The exact status of conversion within word-formation is unclear. For some scholars (Marchand/8/) conversion is a brunch of derivation, for others (Koziol /Marchand/8/) it is a separate type of word-formation, on a level with derivation and compounding. Whether this distinction has any real effect on the structure of a theory of word-formation is not clear.
Conversion
is frequently called zero-derivation, a term which many scholars
prefer (Adams, Jespersen, Marchand/1,5,8/). Most writers who use both
terms appear to use them as synonyms (although Marchand/8/ is an exception).
However, as Lyons/7/ points out, the theoretical implications of the
two are rather different. Cruber/2/, for example, argues that to treat
ordinary derivation and zero-derivation differently in the grammar is
to lose a generalization, since both involve changes of form class,
but claims that they can only by treated the same way, if a zero-affix
is permitted. Otherwise, he says, derivation can be treated as a rule-governed
process, but zero-derivation can't be; that is, the relation between
some napalm and to napalm and other similar pairs must be,
considered to be totally coincidental Lyon's/7/ own view (as noted by
Matthews) is that in cases of so-called zero-derivation, an identity
operation can be said to have been carried out between the base and
the new lexeme. This means that there is a process linking the two lexeme,
napalm, lent that this process defines the form of the derived lexeme
as being identical to the form of the base. This is also more or less
the line taken by Matthews himself, when he speaks of a 'formation involving
zero operation'. The theoretical dubiousness of speaking of zero affixes
in language leads Bauer to prefer the theoretical position enshrined
in the term 'conversion', especially when this can be given a dynamic
interpretation, and that term will be used exclusively from now (on
in this book). It should, however, be noted that this is an area of
dispute in the literature. For a comprehensive review of the literature
on conversion and a discussion of the implication of talking in
terms of zero-derivation, the reader is referred to Pannanen.
Productivity.
Conversion is an extremely productive way of producing new words in English. There do not appear to be morphological restrictions on the forms can undergo conversion, so that compounds, derivatives, acronyms, blends, clipped forms and simplex words are all acceptable inputs to the conversion process. Similarly, all ford classes seem to be able to undergo conversion, and conversion seems to de able to produce words of almost any form class, particularly the open form classes (noun, verb, adjective, adverb ). This seems to suggest that rather than English having specific rules of conversion (rules allowing the conversion of common nouns into verbs or adjectives into nouns, for example) conversion is a totally free process and any lexeme can undergo conversion into any of the open form classes as the need arises. Certainly, if there are constraints on conversion they have yet to de demonstrated. The only partial restriction that it is award of is that discussed by Marchand. Marchand/8/ points out that derived nouns rarely undergo conversion, and particularly not to verb. This is usually because of blocking. To take one of Marchand's examples, a derived noun like arrival will not de converted into a verb if that verb means exactly the same as arrive, from which arrival is derived. In cases where blocking is not a relevant concern, even derived nouns can undergo conversion, as is shown by the series a sign > to sign > a signal > to signal and to commit > commission > to commission.
The commonness of conversion can possibly be seen as breaking down the distinction between form classes in English and leading to a system where there are closed sets such as pronouns and a single open set of lexical that can be used as required. Such a move could be seem as part of the trend away from synthetic structure and towards analytic structure which has been fairly typical of the history of English over the last millennium. This suggestion is, of course highly speculative.
Conversion
as a syntactic process.
Conversion is the use of a form which is regarded as being basically of one form class as though it were a member of a different form class, without any concomitant change of form. There are, however, a number of instances where changes of this type occur with such ease and so regularly that many scholars prefer to see that as matters of syntactic usage rather that as word-formation.
The most obvious cases are those where the change of form class is not a major one (such as from noun to verb or adjective to noun ) but a change from one type of noun to another or one type of verb to another. The clearest example of this type is the use of countable nouns as uncountable and vise versa. In some tea, tea is used as an uncountable noun, while in two teas it is used as a countable noun; goat is normally a countable noun, but if a goat is being eaten it is quite in order to ask for a slice of goat, where goat is used as an uncountable noun. In general, given a suitable context, it is possible to use almost any noun on either way: for example, when the Goons took part in a mountain-eating competition, it would have been perfectly possible to ask whether anyone wanted some more mountain, using mountain as an uncountable noun. Similarly, proper nouns can be easily used as common nouns as in Which John do you mean? or The Athens in Ohio is not as interesting as the Athens in Greece. Intransitive verbs are frequently used as transitive verbs, as in He is running a horse in the Derby or The army flew the civilians to safety. Finally, non-gradable adjectives are frequently used as gradable adjectives, as in She looks very French or New Zealander are said to be more English. Such processes are very near the inflectional end of word-formation.
Another case where it is not completely clear whether or not conversion is involved is with conversion to adjectives. This depends crucially on how an adjective is defined. For some scholars it appears to be the case that the use of an element in attributive position is sufficient for that element to be classified as an adjective. By this criterion bow window, head teacher, model airplane and stone well all contain adjectives formed by conversion formed by conversion. However, it has already been argued that such collocations should be seen as compounds, which makes it unnecessary to view such elements as instances of conversion. Quirk suggest that when such elements can occur not only in attributive position but also in predicative position, it is possible to speak of conversion to an adjective. On the basis of:
*This window is bow
This teacher is head
*This airplane is model
This wall is stone
they
would thus conclude that, in the examples above, head
and stone but not bow
and model have become adjectives by conversion. But this introduces
a distinction between two kinds of modifier which is not relevant elsewhere
in the grammar and which masks a great deal of similarity. It is therefore
not clear that this suggestion is of any great value. This is not meant
to imply that conversion to an adjective is impossible, merely that
it is least controversial that conversion is involved where the form
is not used attributively. Where the form is used attributively, criteria
for concluding that conversion has taken place must be spelled out with
great care. Apart from those mentioned, possible criteria are the ability
to be used in the comparative and superlative, the ability to be modified
by and very, the ability to be used as a base for adverbial -ly
or nominal -ness suffixation. It must be pointed out that very
few adjectives fit all these criteria.
Marginal
cases of conversion.
There are cases of change in form class from a verb to a noun and from a verb to an adjective which do not involve any affixation, but which are not clearly instances of conversion. These are cases there is a shift of stress, frequently with a concomitant change in segmental form, but no change in the morphophonemic form (or in the orthography). Established examples of verb >noun shift kind are abstract, discount, import, refill, transfer Gimson/2/, and of verb > adjective shift: abstract, frequent, moderate, perfect. There is a certain amount of evidence that, at least in some varieties of English, these distinction are no longer consistently drawn, and such examples are becoming clear cases of conversion. Nevertheless, the pattern is still productive, particularly so in the nominalization of phrasal verbs: established examples are show off, walr-over and recent examples are hang-up, put-down.
There
is also a kind of partial conversion where a noun ending in a voiceless
fricative (but excluding / /) is turned into a verb by replacing the
final consonant with the corresponding voiced fricative. The process
is no longer productive. Examples are belief / believe, sheath /
sheathe, advice / advise.
Clear
cases of conversion.
The least clear cases of conversion have been considered first, but there are innumerable perfectly clear cases. For many types a variety of subclassifications is possible. Thus instances of noun > verb conversion can be classified according to whether the noun shows location (to garage the car ) or instrument ( to hammer a nail ) and so on, or according to formal criteria of whether the base is simplex or complex and so on. No attempt is made below to distinguish of these kinds.
The major kinds of conversion are noun > verb, verb >noun, adjective > noun and adjective >verb. Established examples of noun > verb conversion are to badger, to bottle, to bridge, to commission, to mail, to mushroom, to skin, to vecation. Recent examples are to chopper, to data-dank, to leaflet, to network, and to trash. Established examples of verb >noun conversion are a call, a command, a dump, a guess, a spy and recent examples are a commute, a goggle, and an interrupt. Established examples of adjective > verb conversion are to better, to dirty, to empty, to faint, to open, to right and a recent example is to total (a car). Established examples of adjective >noun conversion are relatively rare and are frequently restricted in their syntactic occurrence. For example, the poor cannot be made plural or have any other determiner. Less restricted examples are a daily, a regular, a roast. This type seems to have become much more productive recently, and recent examples includes a creative, a crazy, a double, a dyslexic, a gay, a given, a nasty.
Prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, interjections and even affixes can all act as bases of conversion, as in shown by to up (prices), but me no buts, the hereafter, to heave-no (a recent example) and a maxi (this might be a case of clipping). Moreover, most of these form classes can undergo conversion into more than one form class, so that a preposition down, for example, can become a verb (he downed his beer), a noun (he has a down on me) and possibly an adjective (the down train).
Extrocentric phrase compounds might also be classified here as instances
of conversion of whole phrase. Established examples where the phrase
acts as a noun are an also-ran, a forget-me-not, a has-been and
a recent examples as a don't-know. An established example where
the phrase acts as an adjective is under-the-weather.
Derivation
by a zero-morpheme.
The
term 'zero-derivation'.
Derivation
without a derivative morpheme occurs in English as well as mother
languages. Its characteristic is that a certain stem is used for the
formation of a categorically different word without a derivative element
being added. In synchronic terminology, they are syntagmas whose
determinatum is not expressed in the significant (form). The significate
(content) is represented in the syntagma but zero marked (i.e. it has
no counterpart in form): loan
vb '(make up) loan', look substantive is '(act, instance of)
look(ing)'. As the nominal and verbal forms which occur most frequently
have no ending end (a factor which seems to have played a part
in the coining of the term 'conversion' by Kruisinga/6/) are those in
which nouns and verbs are recorded in dictionaries, such words as
loan, look may come to be considered as 'converted' nouns or verbs.
It has become customary to speak of the 'conversion' of substantive
adjectives and verbs. The term 'conversion' has been used for various
things. Kruisinga/6/ himself speaks of conversion whenever a word takes
on function which is not its basic one, as the use of an adjective as
a primary (the poor, the British, shreds of pink, at his best).
He includes quotation words (his "I don't knows") and
the type stone wall (i.e. substantives used as preadjuncts).
One is reminded of Bally's 'transposition'. Koziol/8/ follows Kruisinga's
treatment and Biese/3/ adopts the same method. Their standpoints is
different. The foregoing examples illustrate nothing but syntactic patterns.
That poor (presented by the definite article, restricted to the
plural, with no plural morpheme added) can function as a primary, or
that government, as in government job, can be used as
preadgunct, is a purely syntactic matter. At the most it could be said,
with regard to the poor, that an inflectional morpheme understood
but zero marked. However inflectional morphemes have a predominantly
function character while the addition of lexical content is of secondary
importance. As for government job
the syntactic use of primary as a preadjunct is regularly unmarked,
so no zero morpheme can be claimed. On the other hand, in government-al,
-al adds lexical content, be it ever so little: 'pertaining to characterizing
government'. Therefore governmental is a syntagma while government
(job) is not. That the phrase jar-off can be used as a preadjunct
is again a syntactic matter. Characterized adverbs do not develop such
functions in any case. We will not therefore, used the term conversion.
As a matter of fact, nothing is converted, but certain stem are used
for the derivation of lexical syntagmas, with the determinatum assuming
a zero form. For similar reasons, the term 'functional change' is infelicitous.
The term itself doesn't enter another functional category, which becomes
quite evident when it is considered the inflected forms.
Endings
and derivation.
In
inflected languages the derivant and derivative usually have a characteristic
nominal or verbal ending. But, ending are not derivative morphemes.
When English was still a more amply inflected language, the present
type existed, but inflectional differences were more in evidence. Cf.
the OE verbs besceopian, fugelian, gamenian, hearmian, freon (freogian),
dernian and their respective bases besceop, fugol,
and the weakening of ending was little bearing on this subject. With
regard to denominate derivation, however, it is interesting to note
that the leveling of endings brought about the loss of distinction in
ME between the OE conjugations. The -an
of ryth-an as well as the -ian
of loc-ian resulted in -en. This reducted the number of
patterns for denominal verbs to one.
Derivation connection between verbs and nouns.
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