"Models of conversion in Modern English"
Abstract
The article under studies deals with the issue of the conversives
structure and semantic characteristics in the models noun – verb, verb – noun,
noun – adjective and adjective – noun. It consists of four stages. The first stage
regards the main approaches to the phenomenon of conversion in line with
system-structural, communicative-functional and cognitive paradigms, as well as
elaborates the definitions, used in the work. The purpose of the second stage is to
form the research material. By a continuous sample of three academic dictionaries
New Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language (2009. 5th ed. London: Pearson
education), Macmillian English Dictionary (2006. In M. Rundell (ed.), For advanced
learners. London: Palgrave Macmillan) and Longman Dictionary of Contemporary
English (2009. 5th ed. London: Pearson education), a total amount of 18,263
conversives was written out. To avoid repeating the conversives given in the
dictionaries, we have developed a sample, in which every conversion pair occurred
once. The total number of the studied conversives is 10,140 tokens, grouped into
5,070 conversion pairs. The third stage highlights the structural and semantic
features of conversives in modern English. It describes the peculiarities of parts of
speech and semantic transitions, as well as determines the conversives structural
models and their modifications. In order to establish regular semantic changes, the
conversion semantic models are singled out, quantitative characteristics of
each model are established and the most productive transitions from the genera-
tive to the derivative are described. At the final stage, the results of the work are
summarized and the prospects for further research are outlined. The obtained
results will enrich the theory of nomination with the new systematized material of
conversives, which are an integral part of natural languages, and the analysis of
English language conversives will supplement the theoretical and methodological
basis for further study of the phenomenon of conversion in other languages.