On Conversion In English

There are several processes in English word-formation: coinage, borrowing, compounding, blending, clipping, backformation, acronyms, derivation, and conversion. Among them, conversion is one of the most common to occur. It is the derivational process whereby an item changes its word-class without the addition of any affix. It is done by converting a lexeme belonging to one class to another, without any overt change in shape. However, it is not easy to determine the original and the converted word in a pair of words that are exactly the same in spelling. There are some elements that are to be considered: the semantic dependence, the range of usage, the semantic range, and also the phonetic shape. Conversion almost always involves open-class vocabulary, especially noun, verb, and adjective. The converted words produced by this process are also in these three classes. The original words, compared to the converted ones, usually have broader range ofmeaning and usage.


A. Introduction
Every language develops, either to a larger extent or to a narrower one.
Therefore, there might be a language that was used to be spoken in the earlier times and no longer in use nowadays.On the other hand, in a certain language that is considered as a productive one, there might be more and more expansion in its elements, This makes the language one that grows larger than before.The expansion usually occurs in morphological level.The phonenuc and syntactic levels are in the least to develop.This is due to some restrictions such as in terms of grammatical rules and the number of phonemes that are consistent in a language.Thus, the easiest way of expanding a language is by creating more and more new words.
processes that can be used to form new words in English.They are coinage, borrowinc.compounding, blending, clipping, backformation, acronyms, derivation, and conversion.

l. Coinage
It is one of the least common processes of word-formation in English.Coinage refers to the invention of totally new terms (Yule, 2002:64).The most typical sources are invented trade names for one company's product which become general terms (without initial capital letters) for any version of that product Some examples of words formed through coinage are aspirin, nylon, zipper, teflon, and xerox.After their coinage, these words become everyday words in English.

Borrowing
This process is one of the most common sources of forming new words in English.It is defined as the taking over of words from other languages (Yule,  2002: 65).English has borrowed many words from other languages, such as kampong (Malay), croissan/ (French), piano (Italian), boss (Dutch), and yogurt (Turkish).

Compounding
Compounding is the process of combining or joining two separate words to form a single one.This is very common in English.Some of the examples are bookcase,fingerprint, sunburn, wallpaper, and wastebasket.

Blending
Besides compounding, the process called blending also involved joining two separate words to form a single one.However, blending is different from Journal of English and Education.Vol. 2 No. 2 1)e.setnber 2008 compounding in the way that blending is typically accomplished by taking only the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of the other word (Yule, 2002:66).Some fatuous examples of blending arc stnog (smoke + fog), brunch (breakfast + lunch), telecast (television + broadcast), infotainment (information + entertainment) and Spanglish (Spanish + English).

Clipping
The element of reduction which is noticeable in blending is even more apparent in the process described as clipping.It occurs when a word of more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form, often in casüal speech.Some examples of clipping are fax (facsimile), gas (gasoline), fan (fanatic), condo (condominium), and math (mathematics).

Backformation
In a backformation, a word is reduced to form another word ofa different type.The words involved are usually those categorized as nouns and verbs, such as television televise, donation donate, option opt, emotion emote, sculptor sculpt, burglar burgle, and swindler swindle.
There is a particular type of backformation which is favored in Australian and British English.The process is named hypocorism.The process goes like this: first a longer word is reduced to a single syllable, then y or ie is added to the end.Some of the examples of hypocorism are movie (moving pictures), telly (television), Aussie (Australian), barbie (barbecue), and hanky (handkerchief).

Acronyms
Forming new words through acronyms means using the initial letters of a set of words..Usually, acronyms are pronounced as single words.Some acronyms use capital letters such as NATO and UNESCO, and some others do not use capital letters, such as radar (radio detecting and ranging), laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), and scuba (self contained underwater breathing apparatus).

Derivation
Derivation is the most common word-formation process in English.The result of this process is usually a word having different class from the root.It is accomplished by means of adding affixes (prefix, suffix, and/or infix) to words.
Prefix is an affix added to the beginning ofa word.The examples are mis-, un., and disin the words misunderstanding, unlike, and disable.An affix form that is added to the end ofa word is called suffix, such as -less, -ful, andy in careless, beautiful, and handy.The third type of affix, infix, is an affix that is-inserted inside a root.This is not so common in English.However, it is occasionally used in aggravating or fortuitous circumstances by emotionally aroused English speakers, such as in in-bloody-credible.

Conversion
The last process of English word-formation is called conversion.It refers to a change in the function ofa word, for example when a noun comes to be used as a verb without any reduction or addition of affixes.Other labels for this process are category change and filnctional shift (Yule, 2002:67).Conversion mainly occurs on nouns and verbs.However, it is possible that other word-classes also undergo it.Some examples of words formed by conversion are guess (verb to noun), experience (noun to verb), and good (adjective to noun).
The later parts of the paper discuss conversion especially on the concepts related to it, its characteristics and process, and the meanings of words formed through conversion especially that involves nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

C. The Characteristics ofConversion in English
Conversion is defined as the derivational process whereby anitem changes its word-class without the additionofan affix (Quirk et al, 1987:441).In line with it?Carstairs-McCarthy (2002: 48) defines conversion as a process whereby a lexeme belonging to one class can simply be 'converted' to another, without any overt change in sfiape.
Conversion is common in English, since in many cases, many nouns verbs are identical in their forms.However, conversion does not always happen words that are homophonous.The terminology used for the process of conve rsi01 has not been established yet.The most usual terms are"conversion', because a is converted (shifted) to a different part of speech; and 'zero-derivation', because the process is like deriving (transferring) a word into another morphologid category with a zero-affix creating a semantic dependence of one word another (Quirk, 1997(Quirk, :1558)).This implies that an affix exists although it seen.Other less frequently used terms are 'functional shift', 'functional change' or 'zero-marked derivative'.
There is still a controversy about where to place the process ofconversion as a way of forming new words in English.Some linguists argue that it is to be put under derivation since both involve changes in the word function, and some other state that conversion is separated from derivation, and therefore, it is placed together with other processes in English word-formation.Even though the position of conversion is not clearly defined yet, Cannon in Bartolome in http://accurapid.com/journal/31conversion.htmargues that conversion will occur more often in the future since the process is simple and easy.Without any reduction or addition, a word can have a new class and also meamng.
Conversion is a productive way to increase English lexicon due to the ease in the process.Bauer (1983: 226) states that conversion is a free process and any lexeme can undergo this whenever necessary.The aim of conversion varies with the user.Adults convey it to use fewer words, whereas children perform it in order to be understood, although they frequently produce ungrammatical utterances (Aitchison, 1989: 161).
A word that has undergone the process of conversion only has one of the meanings of the original word.Marchand in Bartolome (http://accurapid.com/journal/3Iconversion.htm)establishes some criteria to determine the original and derived words.The criteria focus on several aspects: 1. the semantic dependence (the word that reports to the meaning ofthe other is the derivative) 2. the range of usage (the item with the smaller range ofuse is the converted word) 3. the semantic range (the one with less semantic fields is the shifted item) 4. the phonetic shape (some suffxes• express the word-class the item belongs to and, ifit does not fit, this is the derivative).
Because conversion mostly happens to nouns and verbs, there are some things to be considered: 1. Verbs tend to be abstract since they represent actions, whereas nouns are usually concrete because they name things.2. Conversion has direct relationship with the changes in part of speech, thus, the result is usually a noun, verb, or adjective.3. Sometimes a word can undergo conversion into more than one category.

D. The Process ofConvcrsion in English
As mentioned in the previous part of this papcr, thc term conversion refer; to the process of convening a word into a new word with different part of speech without any changes in spelling.This is a common process in English since there are many words in English that arc identical but have different part of speech The process of creating new words through conversion involves the existence of zero-affix and zero-morpheme.They are named zero because the and morpheme are not visible in the new words, yet they do exist.The following illustrate how conversion occurs in English.
Table 1 Table 2 Adjective Verb Both Table I and 2 show the change in the part of speech of the words, from adjectives into verbs.The difference is on the suffix attached to the verbs in the first table .In table 1 , the suffix en is added to the adjectives as a morpheme which means 'make (something) adjective' or 'turn (something) into adjective'.In table 2, no suffix is attached on the verbs derived from the adjectives.The process of conversion can be said to occur here.Without any addition to the original word, a new word with new part of speech and meaning can be formed.Zero-affix or zeromorpheme always accompanies any word that undergoes conversion.

E. Conversion from Verb, Noun, and Adjective
There are many examples showing the existence of conversion.However, the process of conversion is not as simple as it seems.This process is easy to be recognized since both words involved (the original and derivative) are identical In spelling.Besides the change in the function, the derived words formed through conversion sometimes also have different meanings from those ofthe original.In examples ( 7) and ( 8) both underlined words are nouns.This is proven by the article a preceding them.The word help (n) and tramp (n) are converted from the verbs without any changes in spelling.Both nouns convey the meaning of 'something/someone that is doing the verb'.Thus, the word help (n) in example (7) means 'something that helps' and tramp (n) in example (8) means 'someone that tramps'.e.To show an instrument e.g. ( 9) He got a good start in business.
(10) You have to remove the cover before you know it is.
Besides stating an activity and other meanings that are previously discussed, the conversion from verb to noun might also show an instrument.The term instrument is defined as (a) a device used to perform a particular piece of work and (b) a way of achieving or causing something.The word start in example (9) conveys the meaning (b), while the word cover has the meaning (a).

Conversion from noun to verb
The meanings aroused by the process ofconversion from noun to verb are: a.To show an activity of putting something in/on noun e.g. ( 11) He pocketed the money.
(12) They've been filming for six months.The words pocket and film are more familiar as nouns than as verbs.As nouns, they also have broader range of meaning and usage.Therefore, the word pocket (v) and film (v) are considered as the converted forms.These words clearly show the activity of putting something in/on noun putting something in the pocket (11) / film (12).b.To give noun e.g.(13) They named the child John.
The words name (v) and shape (v) are converted from their nouns.This conversion also cause slight changes in the meaning of both words.Name (v) means 'to give a name' and shape (v) means 'to give shape'.c.To show an activity done with the noun as the instrument e.g. ( 15) He hammers down the lid ofabox to fasten it.