The Conversion in the English Language

The article deals with the investigation of the conversion in the English language. It states that the conversion is one of the main methods of enriching the vocabulary of a language. As the English language is an analytical one, the conversion is more specific for English. Many linguists have been interested in the problem of the conversion. The author claims that the conversion is a productive method of word forming in English. The author also investigates the study of new word forms from various parts of speech, such as the nouns, the adjectives, the verbs, the conjunctions and so on. Basing upon different sources the author comments on the term “conversion” and provides examples from such fields of linguistics as lexicon, grammar and phonetics. The phenomenon of conversion is widely spread in English. It is connected with the fact that there are not enough morphological indicators, flexions of parts of speech in this language. The author claims that conversion is one of the main reasons of the rich word stock of the English language.


Introduction
The rich word stock is one of the main factors in every period of the society, and in every communication.The changing of the sematics of the word, the forming of the new lexical units and the succession of the communication process is realized not the by the help of the words that are in the vocabulary of the language but also by the help of borrowed words from other languages or by the help of the words that are conversed in the language.Conversion can be observed in various fields of the language such as lexics, grammar and even in phonetics.The conversion in grammar, or grammatical conversion is commonly observed in the active and in the passive voices of the verb.Such kind of conversion is expressed by means of the same words.
For example, He reads a book.O, kitab oxuyur.
The book is read.Kitab oxunur.
In lexicsthe conversion consists of the words that express mutal relationship between the subject and the predicate.Those words have double valency, and they are realized through the lexical conversion.During the conversion words are changed not only according to their morphological structure but also to their functions.Therefore, this kind of process can be called functional changing.Let us compare the meanings of the word "round" as different parts of speech in the following sentences: He was knocked out in the first round.
Round the number off to the ten.
The neighbors gathered round our barbecue.
The moon was bright and round.
People came from all the country round.
As we see the word "round" is used as different parts of speech such as the noun, the preposition, the adjective and the adverb.

Scope of the Study
We should like to state that generally the conversion is called the word forming process.In this process the formed word refers to a new class of the word without taking any suffixes.This kind of conversion is called a zero-word creating process.Yartseva writes about the conversion: "the style of a new word forming process without using any special word forming affixes; it is the kind of process in which one word is changed into other part of speech" (Soviet encyclopedia, 1990).
Let us take two kinds of words and compare them inside the sentences: single and simple.Both of these words are adjectives.The difference is that the word "single" can be used as a verb without changing its form.For example, They singled him out at once as a possible victim.
In this sentence the word "single out" is translated into the Azerbaijani language as seçmək (to choose).Unlike it the word "simple" cannot be used as a verb without taking any suffixes.For example, Quilts will simplify (not simple) their needs.
As we see the word "simple" takes the verb forming suffix-ify.It is translated into the Azerbaijani language as asanlaşdırmaq, sadələşdirmək.
In the first example,we observe the conversion, namely the zero-word creating process, but in the second sentence the conversion is not observed as the word "simplify" is a derivative verb.It is important to mention that most linguists support the idea of word forming rather than the idea of being syntactic form of the word in the attitude of the conversion.We can name the linguists who prefer the idea of word forming process such as O.S.Akhmanova, Y.A.Jluktenko, E.S.Kubryakova, A.İ.Smirnitsky, Y.S.Stepanov, V.N.Yartseva, H.Marc and and others (Akhmanova, 1966).These linguists also appreciate the conversion as a productive word forming process (Aminova, 2004).
One of the main reasons that conversion is considered to be an active style of word forming process is that native speakers use them in order to save the space.As Chernoqorova writes "the structure of a line language is formed by the functional elements such as the prepositions and the affixes.They are used for the purpose of syntactical economy" (Chernogorova, 1981).
There exist some differences in the commentment of the conversion depending on the mutual relationship of main and derivative words.In the narrow commentment of the conversion the main and derivative lexems of it coincide with one another.This kind of criterion of the conversion was analysed by Smirnitsky.The author writes about the problem: "the conversion is such a kind of word forming process that only the paradigm of a word is used as aword forming style.It is realated to the fact that while one lexeme is changed into the other one it keeps its main form".
According to Peshkova the process of forming a new lexeme (namely the conversion) expresses the mechanism of changing functions between the language elements (Smirnitskiy, 1954).
The conversion is observed mainly among the notional parts of speech such as the nouns, the adjectives and the verbs.The most productive ones among these are the adjectives and the verbs.It is necessary to state that the conversion changes not only the functions of the words but also their meaning differences according to the original meanings.
For example, the word "paper" has four meanings as a noun: We should like to draw your attention to the fact that the word "paper" is noticed to be used as a transitive verb in the example (d).For example: The workers papered the room red.
According to investigations the word forming process has the following methods: 1) The word forming process by adding various affixes to the root of the word; 2) The word forming process by adding words to the root of the word; 3) The new word forming process by converting one part of speech into another one; 4) The word forming process by giving a new meaning to the word.Some linguists claim that the new word forming process in different languages have various kinds: a) The word forming process by using prefixes; b) The word forming process by using postprefixes; c) The word forming process by using inflections.
These divisions were mainly supported by Akhundov.He claimed that there exists such a kind of word forming process by using prefixes, suffixes and postprefixes as well.It is important to state that this kind of word forming process is often observed in the English language.
The word forming process by adding words to the root of the word refers to the synthetic way of the word forming.The synthetic way of the word forming process has two kinds: a) The process by combining two words.For example, in the Azerbaijani language: istiot, düzbucaqlı, üzbəüz, etc.The compound nouns in the English language: appletree, snowball (noun-stem+noun-stem); the compound verbs: daydream, browbeat (noun+verb stem), verb+verb), etc.
b) The process by combining three or more words.For example, in the Azerbaijani language: əlüzyuyan, etc.
1.The syntactic conversion refers to all parts of speech.It describes the word forming process that one part of speech can be used instead of another part of speech without any change.
2. The second kind of the conversion means that one part of speech is converted into the other one and takes the affixes of the grammatical categories of that part of speech and forms a new word.This kind of conversion is called a morphological-syntactical one.
3. The semantic-syntactic conversion is the third kind of the conversion, and it mostly refers to the substantivization process.
4. If a word loses all its semantic and grammatical relations with one part of speech and converts into the other one, this kind of conversion is a semantic one.Now we are going to explain how to convert nouns from verbs.We can say that nearly all single morpheme verbs can form the noun conversion.If we pay attention, we can see that semantically those nouns are related to the origin of the verbs in various ways:

Event or employment
Search (axtarmaq); the activity of searching (axtarış);
Let's take a walk to the park.(Gəlin parka gedək).
We should like to stress that when the phraseological verb is changed into the noun, the verb and the particle can be separated from each other.For example, Flow over (daşqın, subasma), to overflow (daşmaq, axmaq, tökülmək), breakout(püskürmə, yarılma), to outbreak (püskürmək, yarılmaq), fall down (süqut, yıxılma, iflas), to downfall (süqut etmək, dağılmaq, yıxılmaq), take in (qəbul, çəkmə, alma), to intake (qəbul etmək, almaq, çəkmək),etc.Now we want to investigate the adjectives that change into nouns.We want to note from the beginning that it is not abnormal that the adjectives can be changed into the nouns.Unlike the verbs the adjectives that can be used as the nouns cannot take all properties of the nouns.Some adjectives can take all properties of nouns while others cannot.The conversion that some adjectives take all properties of the nouns and change into the nouns is called full conversion.The other group of adjectives that cannot take all properties of nouns and this kind of conversion is called the partial one.
The adjectives that change fully into the nouns take all properties of nouns.For example, they can take the indefinite article as nouns, they can take the plural ending -s (-es) etc.For example: As we stated above the partial adjectives do not take all properties of the nouns.They can take only the definite article (the) and denote the whole class.For example, Thepoor (poor people), the rich (rich people), the young (young people), the wounded (wounded people), the poorer (people who are poorer), the more affluent (people who are richer) the most corrupt (people who are more corrupted), etc.
As we see the words that are formed by the partial adjectives are used to denote a whole class: the young = young people, the wounded = wounded soldiers.
These kinds of words can also be referred to individual persons.For example, the deceased, the departed , the accused, the deserted, the condemned etc.
a.The old man is the poorest among the poor.
b.The young should not look down upon the old.
Now we want to analyze the words that change their meanings in the sentences.These kinds of conversion are changed from the conjunctions, modals, verbals, prepositions, etc.
Would you like to go a with or a without?
Better to be an also-ran than a never-was.
His argument contains too many ifs and buts.
Life is full of ups and downs.
Rubber gloves are a must if your skin is sensitive to washing powders.
There are such kinds of nouns that their being used as verbs depends on the context; they are chosen depending on the meaning of the sentences in the texts.This kind of conversion is considered to be productive, and they are easy to be found.For example, The expresssion "to elbow one's way through the crowd" (kütləni yarıb/itələyib keçmək) is better to be used instead of the expression "to push one's way through the crowd with one's elbow".
As we see the first expression sounds better than the second one.
Other examples: They now eat better food, live in better houses, and wear better clothes than ever before.
Of course, this sentence is more logical, more concise than this one: "They are better fed, better housed, and better clothed than ever before." If we pay attention to the nouns that are changed from the verbs, we see that they keep their real meanings semantically in different ways: g. Robert roomed next to me.
The conversion can also be observed in pronunciation, writing, or stress changings.

The voiceless consonants
The conversion of voiced consonants Nouns Verbs house /-s/ house/-z/ use /-s/ use/-z/ mouth /-θ/ mouth/-e/ shelf /-f/ shelve /-v/ sheath /-θ/ sheathe/-e/ The stress changing can be seen in two syllable words.In the words used as nouns the stress is on the first syllable, in the words used as verbs the stress is on the second syllable.

Conclusion
The conversion is a widely spread word forming process in the English language.The examples used in the article prove it.It happens because there are not enough morphological indicators in the parts of speech in the English language.In the English language there are not morphological flexions of the parts of speech.Therefore, the conversion is often observed among the parts of speech such as the nouns, the verbs, the adjectives, the adverbs, etc.As it is known the word stock of the English language is very rich.Relying on our investigation about the conversion we can say that English must be grateful to its word stock for this.
a) material in thin sheets made from wood or cloth b) a newspaper c) a piece of writing d) wallpaper, etc.
to the fire and have a warm.b.The inexperienced young hopefuls were invited by the manager.c.Poor innocents!d.I'm one of his familiars