Conversion is one of the principal ways of forming words in modern English which consist in making a

new word from some existing word by changing the category of a part of speech; the morpheme shape of
the original word remains unchanged.

Slide 2

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

The causes that made conversion so widely spread are to be approached diachronically.1 Nouns and verbs
have become identical in form firstly as a result of the loss of endings. More rarely it is the prefix that is
dropped: mind < OE zemynd.

When endings have disappeared phonetical development resulted in the merging of sound forms for both
elements of these pairs.

Slide 3

A similar homonymy resulted in the borrowing from French of numerous pairs of words of the same root
but belonging in French to different parts of speech. These words lost their affixes and became
phonetically identical in the process of assimilation.

Slide 4

The etymology of the word is curious from another point of view as well. Eschequier (OFr) means ‘to
play chess'. It comes into Old French through Arabic from Persian shak ‘king'. In that game one must call
"Check!" on putting one’s opponent’s king in danger. Hence the meaning of ‘holding someone in check’;
check also means suddenly arrest motion of' and 'restrain’. Both the noun and the verb are palysemantic in
Modern English.

Slide 5

There are 5 patterns of conversion:

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

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

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

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

Slide 6

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

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

Slide 7

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

Slide 8

In modern English conversion:

• typical of one-syllable words;

• not common to affixed words (e.g. a commission – to commission);

• the predominant way of verb formation;

• verbs are mainly formed from nouns and rarely from other parts of speech;

• highly productive.

Проблема существующего преобразования на древнеанглийском языке очень противоречива. В

среднеанглийском периоде примерно до XV века формирование глагола из существительных и
прилагательных значительно сократилось по той причине, что появилось много французских
заимствований и глаголов-кредитов. Но обратная формация, аналогия и омонимия сыграли
большую роль в дальнейшем развитии преобразования, и вскоре (с XVIII века) она стала одной из
характерных черт английского языка. Современный английский словарь чрезвычайно богат
конвергентными парами. Поскольку способ формирования новых преобразований слов
чрезвычайно продуктивен, а новые конверсионные пары появляются в художественной литературе,
газетных статьях, в процессе устного общения и во всех сферах человеческой деятельности
постепенно пробиваются в существующую лексику и словари, Что ж. Преобразование является
неаффиксным, морфологически-синтаксическим способом построения слов, что приводит к
морфологическим, лексическим, семантическим и синтаксическим изменениям производного слова.