determinatum is not expressed in the significant (form). The significate
(content) is represented in the syntagma but zero marked (i.e. it has no
counterpart in form): loan vb ‘(make up) loan’, look substantive is ‘(act,
instance of) look(ing)’. As the nominal and verbal forms which occur most
frequently have no ending end (a factor which seems to have played a part
in the coining of the term ‘conversion’ by Kruisinga/8/) are those in which
nouns and verbs are recorded in dictionaries, such words as loan, look may
come to be considered as ‘converted’ nouns or verbs. It has become
customary to speak of the ‘conversion’ of substantive adjectives and verbs.
The term ‘conversion’ has been used for various things. Kruisinga/8/
himself speaks of conversion whenever a word takes on function which is not
its basic one, as the use of an adjective as a primary (the poor, the
British, shreds of pink, at his best). He includes quotation words (his «I
don’t knows») and the type stone wall (i.e. substantives used as
preadjuncts). One is reminded of Bally’s ‘transposition’. Koziol/10/
follows Kruisinga’s/8/ treatment and Biese/4/ adopts the same method. Their
standpoints is different. The foregoing examples illustrate nothing but
syntactic patterns. That poor (presented by the definite article,
restricted to the plural, with no plural morpheme added) can function as a
primary, or that government, as in government job, can be used as
preadgunct, is a purely syntactic matter. At the most it could be said,
with regard to the poor, that an inflectional morpheme understood but zero
marked. However inflectional morphemes have a predominantly function
character while the addition of lexical content is of secondary importance.
As for government job the syntactic use of primary as a preadjunct is
regularly unmarked, so no zero morpheme can be claimed. On the other hand,
in government-al, -al adds lexical content, be it ever so little:
‘pertaining to characterizing government’. Therefore governmental is a
syntagma while government (job) is not. That the phrase jar-off can be used
as a preadjunct is again a syntactic matter. Characterized adverbs do not
develop such functions in any case. We will not therefore, used the term
conversion. As a matter of fact, nothing is converted, but certain stem are
used for the derivation of lexical syntagmas, with the determinatum
assuming a zero form. For similar reasons, the term ‘functional change’ is
infelicitous. The term itself doesn’t enter another functional category,
which becomes quite evident when it is considered the inflected forms.
Endings and derivation.
In inflected languages the derivant and derivative usually have a
characteristic nominal or verbal ending. But, ending are not derivative
morphemes. When English was still a more amply inflected language, the
present type existed, but inflectional differences were more in evidence.
Cf. the OE verbs besceopian, fugelian, gamenian, hearmian, freon
(freogian), dernian and their respective bases besceop, fugol, and the
weakening of ending was little bearing on this subject. With regard to
denominate derivation, however, it is interesting to note that the
levelling of endings brought about the loss of distinction in ME between
the OE conjugations. The -an of ryth-an as well as the -ian of loc-ian
resulted in -en. This reducted the number of patterns for denominal verbs
to one.
Derivation connection between verbs and nouns.
With respect to both denominal verbs (type loan verb f. loan
substantive) and deverbal substantives (type look substantive f look verb)
it can be seen that as early as Old English a derivational connection
existed between the present-infinitive stem of weak verb on the one hand
and the stem of nouns on the other. As for deverbal substantive, there was
some competition in the early stages of the language. Like other Germanic
languages, Old English had strong verbs that were connected with
substantives containing an ablaut vowel of the verb (ridan/rad,
bindan/bend, beran/bora). However , this derivational type was unproductive
so far back as Old English. The present-infinitive stem of strong verbs
came to be felt to represent the derivative basis for deverbal substantives
in exactly the same way as did the corresponding stem of weak verbs: ride
verb/ride substantive=look verb/look substantive. But this contention of
Biese’s/4/ needs qualification: ‘these facts indicate the resistance should
by strong verbs to the process of converting them into nouns before, owing
to the introduction of weak inflections, a distinct idea of a universal
verb-stem had been developed’. Many of the verbs had weak forms that
derived substantives at an early date have either never had weak forms are
rare or later than the substantives. Verbs such as bite, fall, feel, fold,
freeze, have, grind, hide make steal, tread are cases in point. This goes
to show that the existence of weak verb forms is incidental to the rise of
a derivational connection between the present infinitive stem of strong
verbs and the stem of substantive.
This derivational connection is partly due to class where a strong
verb and a substantive of the same root existed in OE and where phonetic
development resulted in closely resembling forms for both in ME. OE for,
faru was fare by the end of the 12th century while the corresponding OE
verb faran had reached the stage of faren or fare about the same time.
Other examples of pairs are bidan ‘stay’/bid ‘delay, dwelling place’,
bindan ‘bind’/bind ‘band, tie’, drincan ‘drink’/drinc, drinca ‘drink’,
fleotan ‘float’/fleot ‘place, where water flows’, helpan ‘help’/help,
hreowan ‘rue’/hreow ‘rue’, slepan ‘sleep’/sl p, slep ‘sleep’. The
derivational relation as it have been described them were fully established
around 200.
Zero-derivation as a «specifically English process».
It is usually assumed that the loss of ending gave rise to derivation
by a zero morpheme. Jespersen/7/ gives a somewhat to simplifying picture of
its rise and development . ‘As a great many native nouns and verbs
had...come be identical in form..., as the same things happened with
numerous originally French words..., it was quite natural that the speech-
instinct should take it as a matter of course that whenever the need of a
verb arose, it might be formed without any derivative ending from the
corresponding substantive’. He called the process ‘specifically English’.
As a matter of fact, derivation by a zero morpheme is neither specifically
English nor does it start, as Jespersen’s/7/ presentation would make it
appear when most ending had disappeared. Biese’s/4/ study shows quit
clearly that it began to develop on a larger scale at the beginning of the
13th century , i.e. at a time when final verbal -n had not yet been
dropped, when the plural ending of the present was not yet -en or zero, and
when the great influx of French loan words had not yet started. Bauer/2/
doesn’t think that the weakening of the inflectional system had anything to
do with the problem of zero derivation. Stems are immediate elements for
the speaker, who is aware of the syntagmatic character of an inflected
form. He therefor has no trouble in connecting verbal and nominal stems
provided they occur in sufficiently numerous pairs to establish a
derivational pattern. In Latin which is a highly inflected language,
denominal verbs are numerous: corona/coronare, catena/catenare,
lacrima/lacrimare; cumulus/cumulare, locus/locare, truncus/truncare, nomen,
nomin-/nominare; sacer/sacrare. In Modern Spanish there are full sets of
verbal ending (though in the declension only gender and number are
expressed) both types of zero-derivation are very productive. The weakening
of the inflectional system in English, therefor , can’t have much to do
with development of zero-derivation.
On the other hand, it cannot be denied that despite the relative
productivity of corresponding derivational types in other languages, the
derivative range the English patterns, that of denominal verbs, is still
greater. The explanation of this seems to de that English, unlike Latin,
French, Spanish, or German, never had any competitive types. So, whenever
a derivation was made nouns, it followed the one pattern that existed, i.e.
derivation by zero morpheme. The only derivative morphemes PE has for
denominal verbs are -ate, -ize, -ify. They have restricted range of
derivative force: -ate is latinizing and leaned, -ify is learned while -ize
is chiefly technical. All three derive almost exclusively on a Latin
morphologic basis. The suffixal type dark-en was not originally a
deadjectival pattern; in any case, it would have to a certain extent
rivaled the type idle verb f. Idle adjective only. Derivation by a
morpheme, esp. The type loan verb f. Loan substantive, must therefore be
considered the norm and is quite naturally very strong in English. In
German, there are many competitive types. It is bath mutated and unmutated
verbs (faul-en, hart-en, draht-en, haut-en). There are also denominal verbs
with a derivative morpheme ( stein-ig-en, rein-ig-en; with a foreign
morpheme telefon-ier-en, lack-ier-en ). In addition, German makes use of
the prefixes be-, er-, ver-. Such types as ver-rohen, ver-jung-er,
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