6. Conversion

Question 1

What’s conversion?

Answer 1

When a word doesn’t change at all when it changes POS: an ape - to ape, to jump - a jump, to guard - a guard.

Question 2

What are the denominal verbs?

Answer 2

Verbs that formed from a noun: ape - to ape, peel - to peel.

Question 3

What are the deverbal nouns?

Answer 3

Nouns that formed from a verb: to burn - a burn, to guard - a guard.

Question 4

What are substantivation of adjectives? What are their function?

Answer 4

The result of ellipsis (syntactical shortening). When a word combo with a semantically strong attribute loses its semantically weak noun: a grown-up person > a grown-up.
They have the paradigm of a countable noun and have the same function as nouns.

Question 5

What are the types of partly substantivized nouns?

Answer 5

Those that only have the plural form and have the meaning of collective nouns: finals, sweets, news, greens;
Those with the singular form and definite article: the rich, the English, the dead;

Question 6

What’s back-formation?

Answer 6

Derivation of new words by substracting a real of supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure: recorder > to record (the latter word appeared later), babysitter > to babysit.