Conversion as a productive way of word formation
The problem of conversion was and still is engaged by many researchers and can be divided into two groups. The first group of researchers did not consider the conversion as a method of word formation, such as foreign linguists (A. Kennedy, R. Waddell, K. Pollock et al.) tend to treat this phenomenon as the use of the same word in the functions of various parts of speech, or functional transition from one part of speech to another "[Kharitonchik ZA]. That is, words such as `wife '-` wife', `to wife '-` marry' are forms of the same word. However, researchers who hold to this theory, are in the minority. Most of lexicology and linguists hold the opposite view, which is that the conversion - it is not just one of the ways of word formation in English, and one of the most productive ways. However, the researchers who hold this point of view, gave different conversion definitions. For example, A.I. Smirnitsky offered the following interpretation: "Conversion is such a kind of word derivation in which the word-formation means is a paradigm of the word." Or another definition of conversion, "the term conversion, which many linguists consider inadequate to describe this phenomenon, refers to a number of cases the phonetic identity of word forms, mainly the so-called primary forms of two words belonging to different parts of speech" [Ginzburg R.Z].
However, there is one issue, researchers still converge – varieties of conversion. In lexicology there are four main types of conversions, such as: 1) verbalization (verbs education); 2) substantivization (formation of nouns); 3) adjectivization (formation of adjectives); 4) adverbalization (formation of adverbs). The most productive varieties is substantivization mostly from verbs, and then adjectives. Next is the verbalization, mostly in conjunction of "noun - verb." The least active are the processes and adjectivization adverbalization.
Also, researchers divide conversion into two types: trans-positive and word-formational (lexical).
"When using trans-positive conversion the cognitive meaning is not changed, only its syntactic quality changes. When applying word-formational (lexical) conversion derivational word changes its cognitive (lexical) value, while changing or preserving the quality of syntax (i.e. moving or not moving to a different part of speech) "[Nikitin, M.V.].
Trans-positive conversion includes all cases of change of the speech, where there is no specific word-formation means, and all the formal change of the value is limited to grammatical paradigms. In turn, to change the lexical part of speech conversion is not required, although it often happens so.
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Moreover, trans-positive conversion can be total or partial.
At full conversion a newly formed word receives all the characteristics of the other parts of speech. For example, the nouns by the act of verbalization start denoting actions and are used in the function of the predicate, and also takes all the inflectional forms of the verb, such as face> to face; a pilot> to pilot; a phone> to phone.
When a word gets partial conversion, it is not always necessarily to take all the characteristics of the other parts of speech. For example, at first, noun is formed by conversion from the verbal root, then the noun is combined with such verbs like: give, make, have, take, for example. to smoke> a smoke> to have a smoke; to look> a look> to give a look; to walk> a walk> to take a walk.
Many nouns derived from verbs as a result of the partial conversion, are used only in the singular: It gave me quite a scare. That was a good laugh.
The main feature of the conversion as a word-formation process is the formation of a new designation with the new content. The peculiarity of this phenomenon is that there is a rethinking, turn of the motivational basics and consideration from a new point of view.
"Another condition for conversion is mandatory identity of nominative forms of two words - the original and effective, i.e., identity of a unit that motivated the process with a unit which is motivated by this process. This fact causes difficulties with both defining areas of derivatives (what comes from what), and with the definition of the secondary derivative nature of the study unit "[Kubryakova, E.S.].
Moreover, the conversion ratio can occur not only between the two members, but also among a large number of words, i.e., it can be a chain of two or more words in derivational relationship.
Ufimtseva A.A. selects chains of two, three, four, five or six members, she also takes into account the conversion in the area of transitive and intransitive verbs, and vice versa at the same time:
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1) Binomial: verb - noun: to rescue (спасать) - rescue (спасение);
2) Trinomial: transitive verb - intransitive verb - noun: to mistake (не правильно понять что-либо) - to mistake (ошибаться) - a mistake (ошибка);
3) four-parted: transitive verb - intransitive verb - adjective - noun: to trim (чистый, подрезать) - to trim (приспосабливаться) - trim (аккуратный, в хорошем состоянии) - a trim (порядок, etc.);
4) five-parted: adjective - adverb - noun - transitive verb - intransitive verb: right (прямой) - right (прямо) - a right (право) - to right (выпрямлять) - to right (выпрямляться);
5) six-parted: adjective - noun - adverb - preposition - transitive verb - intransitive verb: round ((круглый) - a round (круг) - round (кругом) - round (вокруг) - to round (округлять) - to round (округляться) [Ufimtseva, A.A.].
Ufimtseva also argues that in modern English verbs on the binomial model conversion can be formed from any noun, if the language doesn’t have a verb formed from the same root by the method of derivation.
In addition, 5 basic criteria of semantic derivation in conversion are allocated: "1) failure criterion (mismatch between the root morpheme and part of speech based on the value of the basis in one word from a pair of connected words by conversion); 2) synonymy criterion (based on the comparison of pairs of words formed by conversion with a similar pair of synonymous words); 3) the criterion of semantic derivation (based on semantic derivation inside a pair of words formed by conversion); 4) the test on frequency of occurrence (less frequent use of the words from the pairs of words formed by conversion indicates that the word is formed from the first); 5) transformation criterion (may be illustrated by the change in the nominal predicative syntagma) "[Zykov, I.V.].
Based on the foregoing, we can draw the following conclusions. Firstly, despite a long historical issue, conversion remains one of the most controversial topics in lexicography and so far researchers can not reach a consensus in the definition of conversion. Secondly, a conversion in one of the ways of word formation, can select the most and the least productive varieties operating in a language. Thirdly, the conversion can be divided into two types – trans-positive and word formational (lexical, derivational), wherein the first is of two types: full and incomplete (partial).
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