Conversion (word formation)

The term conversion (also: zero dissipation, Nullderivation ) referred to in linguistic word formation a type of word formation in which a root word or a flexed word without changing the mold is transferred to a new part of speech ( " Wortartwechsel without word formation elements").

Morphological conversion

If the Wortartwechsel the strain is no further change in the shape, some authors speak of morphological conversion or paradigmatic implementation. It is assumed a strict simplicity criterion: morphological conversion is limited to simple bases, that is used as base only eligible tribes that no Ableitungsaffix (eg, -ung, - ness, - ness, etc. ) have.

Syntactic conversion

If an inflected word part of speech changes, some authors do not assign this morphology, but the syntax. Accordingly, this is then referred to as syntactic conversion.

The participles can generally be treated in the German as a special case of adjectives, so that would be the last example, no conversion.

Since nouns in German can not normally be increased and the genus only by additional morphemes, often the suffix { - in} can change, the treatment of the corresponding conversions as word formation product is problematic, and although they can accept a largely independent significance, remains the transparent unidirectional derivative of the noun from the adjective always possible. The same applies to the nominalization of verbs without Endmorph { -ung }. Both versions are so different than most morphological conversions synchronously productive. Eisenberg identified accordingly in the syntactic conversion the principle of "A Streetcar Named noun": verbs and adjectives can be used as a noun (eg drive → driving, well → ( of / / the ) Good ), verbs can use the participle as are adjectives, and hence re-used as nouns ( choose → → chosen ( of / / the ) the elect ); other uses, however, do not occur.

Next Condensed conversion - Implicit derivation

Some authors define conversion less restrictive than Wortartwechsel a strain without the aid of an affix. Accordingly, Wortartwechsel be viewed with a change of the stem vowel as conversions in addition to the above cases. Other authors refer to these cases, however, an implicit derivative.