linguistics Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...

, conversion, also called zero derivation or null derivation, is a kind of word formation involving the creation of a word (of a new

word class In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech ( abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are ass ...

) from an existing word (of a different word class) without any change in form, which is to say,

derivation Derivation may refer to: Language * Morphological derivation, a word-formation process * Parse tree or concrete syntax tree, representing a string's syntax in formal grammars Law * Derivative work, in copyright law * Derivation proceeding, a proc ...

using only

zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation such as the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, 0 also serves as a placeholder numerical digit, which works by multiplying digits to the left of 0 by the radix, usual ...

. For example, the

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

''green'' in golf (referring to a putting-green) is derived ultimately from the

adjective In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...

''green''. Conversions from adjectives to nouns and vice versa are both very common and unnotable in English; much more remarked upon is the creation of a

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

by converting a noun or other word (e.g., the adjective ''clean'' becomes the verb ''to clean'').

Verbification

Verbification, or verbing, is the creation of a verb from a noun, adjective or other word.

In English

In English, verbification typically involves simple conversion of a non-verb to a verb. The verbs ''to verbify'' and ''to verb'', the first by

with an affix and the second by

derivation, are themselves products of verbification (see autological word), and, as might be guessed, the term ''to verb'' is often used more specifically, to refer only to verbification that does not involve a change in form. (Verbing in this specific sense is therefore a kind of anthimeria.) Examples of verbification in the English language number in the thousands, including some of the most common words such as ''mail'' and ''e-mail'', ''strike'', ''talk'', ''salt'', ''pepper'', ''switch'', ''bed'', ''sleep'', ''ship'', ''train'', ''stop'', ''drink'', ''cup'', ''lure'', ''mutter'', ''dress'', ''dizzy'', ''divorce'', ''fool'', ''merge'', to be found on virtually every page in the dictionary. Thus, verbification is by no means confined to

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-g ...

and has furnished English with countless new expressions: "access", as in "access the file", which was previously only a noun, as in "gain access to the file". Similar mainstream examples include "host", as in "host a party", and "chair", as in "chair the meeting". Other formations, such as "gift", are less widespread but nevertheless mainstream. Verbification may have a bad reputation with some English users because it is such a potent source of

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

s. Although some neologistic products of verbification may meet considerable opposition from prescription and description, prescriptivist authorities (the verb sense of '' impact'' is a well-known example), most such derivations have become so central to the language after several centuries of use that they no longer draw notice. In many cases, the verbs were distinct from their noun counterparts in

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

, and regular sound change has made them the same form: these can be reanalysed as conversion. "Don't talk the talk if you can't walk the walk" is an example of a sentence using those forms.

In other languages

In other languages, verbification is a more regular process. However, such processes often do not qualify as conversion, as they involve changes in the form of the word. For example, in Esperanto, any word can be transformed into a verb, either by altering its ending to ''-i'', or by applying suffixes such as ''-igi'' and ''-iĝi''; and in

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...

, the process often involves changes of internal vowels, such as the Hebrew word "גגל" (, ), from the proper noun גוגל ().

Noun conversion in English

Many English nouns are formed from unmodified verbs: a fisherman's ''catch'', to go for a ''walk'', ''etc.''

Humor

Verbification is sometimes used to create

nonce word A nonce word (also called an occasionalism) is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication.''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language''. Ed. David Crystal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ...

s or joking words. Often, simple conversion is involved, as with formations like ''beer'', as in ''beer me'' ("give me a beer") and ''eye'', as in ''eye it'' ("look at it"). Sometimes, a verbified form can occur with a prepositional particle, e.g., ''sex'' as in ''sex it up'' ("make it sexier"). A ''

Calvin and Hobbes ''Calvin and Hobbes'' is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. Commonly cited as "the last great newspaper comic", ''Calvin and Hobbes'' has enjoyed b ...

'' strip dealt with this phenomenon, concluding with the statement that "Verbing weirds language",Watterson, Bill (1993)
Calvin and Hobbes January 25, 1993
"Calvin and Hobbes". demonstrating the verbing of both ''verb'' and ''weird''. (The former appears in its use as a

gerund In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiab ...

References

External links

"Grammar Puss"
by Steven Pinker
Figures of Speech

{{Authority control Word coinage Linguistic morphology br:Verbadurezh