5 Derivation without affixation

5.1 Conversion
Conversion can be defined as the derivation of a new word without any overt making.
Derived words are semantically more complex than their bases.
a. the bottle to bottle; the hammer to hammer; the file to file; the skin to skin;
the water to water; noun to verb
b. to call a call; to dump a dump; to guess a guess; to jump a jump; to spy a
spy; verb to noun
c. better to better; empty to empty; hip to hip; open to open; rustproof to
rustproof; adjective to verb
d. poor the poor; rich the rich; well-fed the well-fed; blind the blind; sublime
the sublime; adjective to noun
5.2 The directionality of conversion
The first problem is the directionality of conversion.
There are 4 possible ways of determining the directionality of conversion:
1. To look at the history or the language and see which word was first. However,
most speakers would say that that the verb to crowd was derived from the noun
crowd. According to the OED, historically the verb was first. Similar argument
holds for moan which was first attested in 1225 as a noun, and later (16th century)
was converted into verb. Todays meaning of moan is perhaps best described as
the act of moaning which shows that for present-day speakers the noun depends
on the verb for its interpretation and not vice-versa. In general, derived words are
much more complex than their bases, since affixes normally add a certain
meaning to the meaning of the base. Consider the following examples:
-

to bottle to put into a bottle

call the act of calling

to better to make or become better

poor poor people (as a class)

In all four cases the second member of the pair is semantically more complex than
the first element and depends in its representation on the latter.

2. Historical and semantic information alone will not solve the directionality
problem:
present tense
ring
ring
wing
grandstand

past tense
ringed
rang
winged/*wang/*wung
grandstanded/*grandstood

meaning
provide with a ring
* provide with a ring
provide with wings
to act to impress
spectators

The past tense of the converted verbs is regular, although there is a possibility of
irregular inflection. If we can state that converted verbs in general must be
regularly inflected, we can make an argument concerning the directionality of
conversion based on the inflectional behavior: if we find a homonymous verbnoun pair which is a potential case of conversion, and one of the words is
irregularly inflected, this is a strong indication that the regularly inflecting word is
derived from the irregularly inflecting word. The irregular inflectional behavior of
verbs like to drink, to hit, to shake, to sleep is a strong argument for the deverbal
nature of the nouns drink, hit, shake, sleep.
3. Another formal property that comes to mind when thinking about conversion is
sress: to torment and a torment, to permit and a permit, to construct and a
construct, to extract and an extract, to abstract and an abstract; to get away and a
get away, to let down and a let down, to pull down and a pull down, to push up
and a push up, to walk over and a walk over;
This data shows pairs of verbs and nouns which can be analyzed as standing in
derivational relationship. Based on semantic consideration, we can state that these
are all cases of deverbal nouns. From a formal perspective these pairs are also
interesting because the two members differ in one property, their stress pattern.
When spelled without stress there are no visible markings, but when pronounced,
there is a clear difference between the verbs and nouns.
4. Frequency of occurrence is the last property. There is a strong tendency for
derived words being less frequently used than their based words. It has been
showed in Plag (2002) that in random sample of 92 able derivatives taken from
BNC, only 7 were more frequent than their base words. The same was shown for a
sample of ize derivatives where only 11 out of 102 derivatives were more

frequent than their base words. Being semantically more complex, derived words
tend to have a narrower range of meaning.
5.1.2 Conversion or zero-affixation?
Most morphologists think that zero-form is justified only in those cases where there is
also an overt (i.e. non-zero) form that expresses exactly the same meaning or function.
This constraint has also been called the overt analogue criterion. This means that for
each type of conversion we would have to find at least one affix that expresses exactly the
same range of meanings as conversion.
The crucial question is whether there is a verb-deriving affix that has precisely the same
meaning as our putative zero-affix. To test the overt analogue criterion with verb-to-noun
conversion, we have to compare the meaning of overt suffixes like ation, -al, -ing, -ment
etc. with converted nouns. Cetnarowska has shown that there are at least two remarkable
systematic differences between nouns referring to actions and converted nouns (drawing
and draw). Drawing refers to any activity of drawing while draw is restricted in its
reference to the drawing of cards or lots. Also, verbs that can be used both transitively
and intransitively exhibit different effects under nominalization by suffixation or
conversion. The suffixed nominalization will be related to the transitive usage of the verb,
while the conversion will be related to intransitive.
Adjective to noun conversion: there is no overt analogue in sight.
Adjective to verb conversion: there is no overt analogue in sight.
5.1.3 Conversion: morphological or syntactic?
Conversion could be defined as the use of a word with a given syntactic category in a
syntactic position that it normally does not occupy.
a. James watered the plants every other day.
b. James wintered in Spain.
We could argue that the verbs water and winter are not derived by a morphological
process, but simply by putting them into a verbal slot in the sentences which would be a
syntactic, not a morphological operation.
Some proponents of a syntactic view of conversion have argued that lexical category
information may be underspecified, so that full specification is achieved only when the
word appears in specific syntactic context.

 Hammer: the hammer receives a nominal interpretation (a tool for hammering), while in
a verbal slot, the word hammer receives a verbal interpretation (action of hammering)
Distinctions between morphological and syntactic process: In English there is a syntactic
rule that articles precede adjectives, which in turn precede nouns (the clever student, the
blue shirt, the notorious jail), so that in order to sterilize the words correctly, the rule
must have access to the category information of the words, but cannot change this
information. In this sense, we would have clear criterion that would tell us that conversion
is non-syntactic. However, in a different theory of syntax, we would say that there is a
syntactic rule which says that adjectives can generally be used in syntactic positions
reserved for nouns, if they are preceded by the definitive article the, as for example in the
rich or the obvious.
The most important property that distinguishes morphological rules and entities from
syntactic ones is the idiosyncrasies of morphological formations. Complex words can
display all kinds of exceptional properties, whereas syntactic patterns and their
interpretations tend to be rather exceptionless. Applying this idea to conversion, it seems
that with regard to converted verbs idiosyncratic meanings and lexical gaps are rather
common, which indicates their lexical, non-syntactic nature. We can observe that to
winter is possible, but that analogous forms to spring or to autumn seem to be utterly
strange.
To summarize, we have seen that the directionality problem can be solved by
combining historical, semantic, formal and frequential evidence, the problem
of zero-form can be solved by strictly applying the overt analogue criterion,
and the morphology-syntax boundary problem can be solved by adducing
considerations on the nature of lexical rules.

5.2 Prosodic morphology

Prosodic morphology deals with the interaction of morphological and prosodic
information in determining the structure of complex words.
5.2.1 Truncations: truncated names, -y diminutives, and clippings
Truncation is a process in which the relationship between a derived word and its base
is expressed by the lack of phonetic material in the derived word.
a. Ron (Aeron); Liz (Elizabeth); Mike (Michael); Trish (Patricia)

b. Condo (condominium1); demo (demonstration); disco (discotheque); lab

(laboratory).
The examples below involve suffixation by y (-ie; -ee), but their form seems to be
heavily influenced by truncation, which is the reason why we treat them here:
Mandy (Amanda)
Andy (Andrew)
Charlie (Charles)
Patty (Patricia)
Robbie (Robert)
Truncated names are used to express familiarity.
Formal properties of name truncation:
Base
Aaron
Abigail
Abraham
Adelbert
Adolphus
Agatha
Albert
Alexandra
Adolf

Truncated name
Ron
Gail
Abe
Bert
Dolph
Ag
Al
Xan
Al/ Alf

Base
Alonzo
Alonzo
Amelia
Antoinete
Arabella
Augustus
Barbara
Bartholomew
Belinda

Truncated name
Al
Lon
Mel
Net
Belle
Guss
Barb
Bart
Belle

Can you think any of Serbian nicknames which are diminutives?

Taking all truncated forms into consideration, we can see that all truncations are
monosyllabic. Furthermore we can state that truncated names have a very strong tendency
to begin and end in a consonant, even though the bases may start/ end with a vowel.
We can make generalization that name truncations have a strong tendency to conform to a
rather fixed prosodic structure, a so-called template, which can be characterized as:
a. CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant)
b. CVV (consonant-vowel-vowel)
c. VC (vowel-consonant)

Consonant clusters? Steve, Dolph, Bart

a. CcVvCc
b. CcVv
c. VvCc

a building or complex of buildings containing a number of individually owned apartments or houses.

How the derived word is related to the base word? With truncation only parts of the base
survive derivation.
Eveline Eve/ Lyn
Florence Flo/ Floss
Patricia Pat/ Trish

The three groups:

First syllable survives

Albert Al
Alonzo Al
Alfred Alf
Barbara Barb
Bartholomew Bart

Primarily stressed
survives
Abraham Abe
Adolphus Dolph
Agatha Ag
Alonzo Lon
Alexandra Xan
Amelia Mel
Antionette Net
Augustus Guss
Alfred Alf
Arabella Belle

syllable Secondarily stress

survives
Abigail Gail
Adelbert Bert

syllable

There is one more characteristic of the name truncations. In some of the above names we
find also a number of segmental changes on the way from the base to the truncation

/r/ is replaced by /l/ if it is a single coda consonant (Harry Hal, Sarah Sal)

But /r/ survives if it occurs in the onset of a truncation (Rob, Ron, Rick), and if
it occurs as the first member of a coda cluster (Barb, Berb, Bart).

// is also avoided and replaced with /t/

The following templatic restrictions hold:

-y diminutives are trochaic disyllables2 with the second disyllable consisting of a single
consonant and the suffix. To satisfy the templatic restrictions, longer base words are
severely truncated.
Subclass of truncations clippings (also used as an equivalent to truncations); clippings
appear to be mixed bag of forms abbreviated from larger words which share a common
function to express familiarity with the denotation of the derivative. Thus lab is used by
people who work in laboratories.
How about demo and ads?

a word or metrical foot consisting of two syllables.

Ad advertisement
Demo demonstration
Fax telefax
Phone telephone
Porn pornography

Condo condominium
Disco discotheque
Lab laboratory
Photo photography
Prof professor

5.2.2 Blends
Blending is the fusion of two words into one. Usually the 1st part of one word and last
part of another.
Two types of blendings:
breath + analyzer = breathalyzer
motor + camp = mocamp

shortened compounds

motor + hotel = motel

science + fiction = sci-fi

boat + hotel = boatel

boom + hoist = boost
breakfast + lunch = brunch
channel + tunnel = chunnel
compressor + expander = compander

proper blends

goat + sheep = geep

guess + estimate = guesstimate
sheep + goat = shoat
stagnation + inflation = stagflation
Proper blends resemble copulative compounds (actor-director; writer-journalist)
Both base words of a blend must be somehow semantically related (two words of the
same syntactic category)
Blending rule:
A B + C D = AD

 As evidenced by guesstimate, B or C can be null (one of the two forms may appear in
its full form)
Where speakers set their cuts on the base words?
Combinations of syllabic constituents in monosyllabic blends, applying the blending
rule AB + CD = AD
Goat + sheep = geep

Rime

Onset

Nucleus

Coda

B
/g i : p/ A + D
A onset
D rime
o

Rime

Onset

Nucleus

Coda

 Combination of syllabic constituents in polysyllabic blends:

A
Onset
Onset and nucleus
Onset and nucleus
Onset
Syllable
Syllable

D
Penultimate rime3 and ultimate
syllable
Ultimate4 syllable
Coda and ultimate syllable
Syllables
Ultimate rime
Syllables

A+D, examples
B + oatel
Ch + unnel
Boa + tel
Spa + nglish
Boat + el
Com + pander
Guess + timate
Stag + flation

Count the syllables of base words and their blendings.

5.3 Abbreviations and acronyms
Abbreviations are similar in nature to blends, because both blends and abbreviations are
amalgamations5 of parts of different words. Like truncation and blending, abbreviations
involve loss of material (not addition to material, as with affixation).
Abbreviations are most commonly formed by taking initial letters of multi-word sequences to
make up a new word:
BA (Bachelor of Arts)
DC (District of Columbia)
EC (European Community)
FAQ (frequently asked questions)
Acronymy is process whereby a word is formed from the initials or beginning segments of a
succession of words.
ASAP, CIA, FBI, VAT, asap, radar

penultimate (second from last) syllable

ultimate (last)
5
In general, amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form.
4

Spelling
In capitals
In capitals
In lower case letters
In lower case letters with dots

Pronunciation
As individual letters
As regular words
As a regular word
As individual letters

In lower case letters with dots

The abbreviated words

individually pronounced

Example
ASAP, CIA, FBI, VAT
ASAP, CARE, NATO, START
Asap, radar, vat
a.s.a.p.
e.g.
etc.
are a.s.a.p
etc.