In linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of meaning (semantics and pragmatics). Grammar encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the rules that determine how words, conversion, also called zero A zero, in linguistics, is a constituent needed in an analysis but not realized in speech. This implies that there is a lack of an element where a theory would expect one. It is usually written "Ø" derivation In linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words, as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine. A contrast is intended with the process of inflection, which uses another kind of affix in order to form variants of the same word, as with determine/determine-s/determin-ing/determin-ed, is a kind of word formation In linguistics, word formation is the creation of a new word. Word formation is sometimes contrasted with semantic change, which is a change in a single word's meaning. The line between word formation and semantic change is sometimes a bit blurry; what one person views as a new use of an old word, another person might view as a new word derived; specifically, it is the creation of a word A word is the smallest free form in a language, in contrast to a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning. A word may consist of only one morpheme (e.g. wolf), but a single morpheme may not be able to exist as a free form (e.g. the English plural morpheme -s) from an existing word without any change in form. Conversion is more productive In linguistics, productivity is the degree to which native speakers use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation. Since use to produce novel structures is the clearest proof of usage of a grammatical process, the evidence most often appealed to as establishing productivity is the appearance of novel forms of the type the in some languages than in others; in English it is a fairly productive process.
Often a word of one lexical category In grammar, a lexical category is a linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items), which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb, among others. There are open word classes, which constantly acquire new members, and closed (part of speech) is converted to a word of another lexical category; for example, the noun A noun can co-occur with an article or an attributive adjective. Verbs and adjectives can't. In the following, an asterisk in front of an example means that this example is ungrammatical green in golf (referring to a putting-green) is derived ultimately from the adjective An adjective is a word signifying a conceptual representation of an ontological possibility green. Conversions from adjectives to nouns and vice versa are both very common and unnotable in English; much more remarked upon is verbing, the creation of a verb In syntax, a verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that conveys action (bring, read, walk, run, learn), or a state of being (exist, stand). In most languages, verbs are inflected (modified in form) to encode tense, aspect, mood and voice. A verb may also agree with the person, gender, and/or number of some of its arguments, such as by converting a noun or other word (e.g. the adjective clean becomes the verb to clean).
The boundary between conversion and functional shift In linguistics, functional shift occurs when an existing word takes on a new syntactic function. For example, the word like, formerly only used as a preposition in comparisons , is now also used in the same way as the subordinating conjunction as in many dialects of English (as in "sounds like he means it"). The boundary between (the extension of an existing word to take on a new syntactic In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages function) is not well-defined.
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Verb conversion in English
Verbification, or verbing, is the creation of a verb from a noun, adjective or other word. Verbification is a type of functional shift In linguistics, functional shift occurs when an existing word takes on a new syntactic function. For example, the word like, formerly only used as a preposition in comparisons , is now also used in the same way as the subordinating conjunction as in many dialects of English (as in "sounds like he means it"). The boundary between. It is also a form of derivation In linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words, as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine. A contrast is intended with the process of inflection, which uses another kind of affix in order to form variants of the same word, as with determine/determine-s/determin-ing/determin-ed, and may involve any of the various derivational processes. In English, verbification typically involves simple conversion of a non-verb to a verb. The verbs to verbify and to verb are themselves products of verbification, 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 Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of words . While words are generally accepted as being (with clitics) the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most (if not all) languages, words can be related to other words by rules. For example, English speakers recognize that the words dog, dogs, and dog. (Verbing in this specific sense is therefore a kind of anthimeria.)
Verbification may have a bad reputation with some English users because it is such a potent source of neologisms A neologism ; from Greek νέος (neos 'new') + λόγος (logos 'speech') is a newly coined word or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event. Although most products of verbification are regarded as neologisms, and may meet considerable opposition from prescriptivist In linguistics, prescription can refer both to the codification and the enforcement of rules governing how a language should be used. These rules can cover such topics as standards for spelling and grammar or syntax, or rules for what is deemed socially or politically correct or proper. It includes the mechanisms for establishing and maintaining authorities, they are extremely common in colloquial A colloquialism is a linguistic phrase that is characteristic of or only appropriate for casual, ordinary, familiar, and/or informal written or spoken conversation, rather than for formal speech, standard writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier speech, particularly specialized jargon Jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, or group. The philosophe Condillac observed in 1782 that "Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas." As a rationalist member of the Enlightenment he continued, "It seems that one ought to, where words are needed to describe common actions or experiences.
Verbification is by no means confined to argot Argot is a secret language used by various groups—including, but not limited to, thieves and other criminals—to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. The term argot is also used to refer to the informal specialized vocabulary from a particular field of study, hobby, job, sport, etc, and has furnished English with countless new expressions, e.g. "access", as in "access the file", which was previously 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. 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, beer, talk, salt, pepper, switch, bed, sleep, ship, train, stop, drink, cup, lure, mutter, dress, dizzy, divorce, fool, merge, and many more, to be found on virtually every page in the dictionary A dictionary, also referred to as a lexicon, wordbook, or vocabulary, is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a. In many cases, the verbs were distinct from their noun counterparts in Old English Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary register of Anglo-Saxon 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 exemplary sentence.
In other languages, such as Japanese Japanese (日本語, Nihongo?, [nihoŋɡo] ) is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none of them has gained unanimous acceptance. Japanese is an and the Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. They constitute a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. The most widely spoken Semitic language by far today is Arabic . It is followed by Amharic (2, verbification is a more regular process. In Esperanto Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887. The word esperanto means "one who hopes" in the language itself. The language's original name was ", any word can be transformed into a verb, either by altering its ending to -i, or by applying suffixes such as -igi and -iĝi.
Humor
Verbification is sometimes used to create nonce words A nonce word is a word used only "for the nonce"—to meet a need that is not expected to recur. Quark, for example, was a nonce word in English appearing only in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake until Murray Gell-Mann quoted it to name a new class of subatomic particle. The use of the term nonce word in this way was apparently the work of or joking words. Sometimes these jocular constructions gain favor and become used in serious discourse, due to a subtle shade of meaning which is present in the neologism but absent from similar standard verbs, e.g. speechify. In other cases, 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 requires an adverb, e.g. sex as in sex it up ("make it sexier"). Verbification is the basis for a running joke in the 1936 comedy film My Man Godfrey My Man Godfrey is a 1936 American screwball comedy film by Universal Pictures, directed by Gregory LaCava. It was adapted from the novel 1101 Park Avenue by Eric Hatch and Morrie Ryskind, with uncredited contributions by Gregory La Cava. The story concerns a socialite who hires a derelict to be her family's butler, only to fall in love with him,, in which Godfrey is asked "Do you know how to buttle?" (perform the duties of a butler A butler is a servant in a wealthy, large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some also have charge of the entire parlour floor, and housekeepers caring for the entire house and its appearance. A butler is usually male, and in charge). This backwards construction of a comical verb from a noun is similar to Homer Simpson Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and father of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Homer was created and designed by's proud exclamation, "Yes, Bart's a tutor now. Toot on, son, toot on!"[1]
Sometimes unintentional verbification can be a source of humour, for example, when Richard M. Daley Richard Michael Daley is a United States politician, member of the national and local Democratic Party, and currently the Mayor of Chicago, Illinois. He was elected mayor in 1989 and reelected in 1991, 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007. His 2007 re-election put him in position to become the longest-serving mayor in Chicago's history, a record currently, the mayor of Chicago Chicago ( /ʃɨˈkɑːɡoʊ/ or /ʃɨˈkɔːɡoʊ/) is the largest city in both Illinois and the Midwest, and the third most populous city in the United States, with over 2.8 million residents. Its metropolitan area, commonly named "Chicagoland", is the 26th most populous in the world, home to an estimated 9.7 million people spread, created the verb scrooten during a 2001 press conference, "Go scrutinize yourself! I get scrootened every day, don't worry, from each and every one of you. It doesn't bother me."[2] Another example is when Sarah Palin Sarah Louise Palin (pronounced /ˈpeɪlɨn/ ; née Heath; born February 11, 1964) is an American politician, author, speaker, and political news commentator who was the youngest person and the first woman elected Governor of Alaska. She served as governor from 2006 until she resigned in 2009. Chosen by Republican Party presidential candidate John coined the verb refudiate, apparently merging "refute" and "repudiate".[3]
A Calvin and Hobbes Calvin and Hobbes is a syndicated daily comic strip written and illustrated by American cartoonist Bill Watterson, and syndicated from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger. The pair are named after John Calvin, a 16th- strip dealt with this phenomenon, concluding with the statement that "Verbing weirds language", demonstrating the verbing of both verb and weird. (The former appears in its use as a gerund In English, the gerund is identical in form to the present participle and can behave as a verb within a clause (so that it may be modified by an adverb or have an object), but the clause as a whole (sometimes consisting of only one word, the gerund itself) acts as a noun within the larger sentence. For example: Eating this cake is easy.)
References
- ^ The Simpsons The Simpsons is an American animated television series created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a working-class American lifestyle epitomized by its eponymous family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional city of Springfield, and lampoons episode 2F22, 1996: Lemon of Troy
- ^ What's the stupidest thing Daley has ever said? John Kass, Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-quotes-20100521,0,200251,full.column
- ^ Palin invents word 'refudiate,' compares herself to Shakespeare. Washington Post The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation, 19 July 2010, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/07/palin-invents-word-compares-he.html?hpid=topnews
External links
- "Grammar Puss" by Steven Pinker
- Figures of Speech
- "Verbing Nouns"
Categories: Word coinage Categories: Etymology | Vocabulary | Words | Linguistic morphology Categories: Linguistics | Grammar | Onomastics | Historical linguistics
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Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:28:59 GM
If your incentive is the threat of firing or other penalty, you should try the word threaten or browbeat. Otto E. Mezzo. References: The Boston Globe s Dissent on Incent Grammar Girl s take on . verbification. ...
