BASIC CRITERIA OF SEMANTIC DERIVATION IN CONVERSION

There are different criteria of differentiating between the source and the derived word in a conversion pair.

1. The criterion of the non-correspondence between the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme and the part-of-speech meaning of the stem in one of the two words in a conversion pair.

In the pair father (n) — father (v), the noun is the name for a being. The lexical meaning of the root-morpheme corresponds to the part -of-speech meaning of the stem. The verb to father denotes a process; therefore the part-of-speech meaning of its stem does not correspond to the lexical meaning of the root which is of a substantive character. This distinction accounts for a complex character of the semantic structure of verbs of this type. Due to the fact that the

semantically simple is the source of the semantically complex, the verb to father can be considered the derived member in the conversion pair in question.

2. The synonymity criterion. This criterion is based on the comparison of a conversion pair with analogous synonymous word-pairs. For example, comparing the conversion pair chat (v) — chat n with the synonymous pair of words to converse — conversation, it becomes obvious that the noun chat is the derived member as the semantic relations in the case of to chat — chat are similar to those between to converse — conversation. The synonymity criterion is considerably restricted in its application, it may be applied only to deverbal substantives (v > n).

3. The criterion of derivational relations. In the word-cluster, for instance, hand (n) — hand (v) — handful — handy the derived words of the first degree of derivation' have suffixes added to the nominal base handful, handy. Thus, the noun hand is the center of the word-cluster.

This fact makes it possible to conclude that the verb to hand is the derived member in the conversion pair under analysis.

4. The criterion of semantic derivation. This criterion is based on semantic relations within conversion pairs. The existence of relations typical of denominal verbs within a conversion pair proves that the verb is the derived member, the existence of relations typical of deverbal substantives marks the noun as the derived member. For example, the semantic relations between crowd (n) — crowd (v) are perceived as those of’ an object and an action characteristic of the object'. This fact makes it possible to conclude that the verb crowd is the derived member.

5. The criterion of the frequency of occurrence. According to this criterion a lower frequency value testifies to the derived character of the word in question. For example, according to M.West's "A General Service List of English Words", the frequency value of the following

verb-noun conversion pair is estimated as follows: to answer (63 %) answer (35 %). Thus, the noun answer is the derived member.

6. The transformational criterion. The application of the transformational procedure may be illustrated by a change of a predicative syntagma into a nominal syntagma: Roy loves nature --

Roy's love of nature. This transformation is made by analogy with the transformation of The committee elected John into John's election by the committee in which the word election is a derived one. This makes it possible to conclude that the noun love is the derived member.

Failure to apply this transformational procedure proves that nouns cannot be regarded as derived from the corresponding verbal base, e-g She bosses the establishment —> Her boss of the establishment.

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