Chapter 4: Morphology

KEY POINTS: Conversion and zero-derivation 

conversion is a word-formation process which transfers a lexeme to a new word-class 
without the addition of an overtly marked suffix 

while conversion frequently produces verbs from nominal or adjectival bases, for 
many cases it can be difficult to determine the direction of derivation 

an alternative account is the idea of zero-derivation which claims that a zero-
morpheme is responsible for the observable change of word-class 
Exercise 4.5 
Paraphrase the meanings of the following conversions as illustrated in a) and b): 
a. pocket V  pocket N: „put in N‟ 
b. kick N  kick V: „an act/instance of V-ing‟ 
c. nail V  nail N 
d. progressive N progressive Adj 
e. grant N  grant V 
f. model V  model N 
g. warm V  warm Adj 
4.5.5 Back-formation 
Like suffixation and conversion, back-formation is a word-class-changing process. In 
contrast, however, this process is not marked by the addition of morphological material or by 
keeping the surface form unchanged, but by the elision of material. It can be defined as the 
process whereby the deletion of a morpheme or morpheme-like element results in a 

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transposition of a lexeme to a new word-class. The verb babysit, which is derived from the 
noun babysitter by means of back-formation, and the verb to sightsee derived from 
sightseeing have already been mentioned above. Other frequently quoted examples include to 
burgle  burglar, to edit  editor, to laze  lazy and to televize  television. As these 
examples indicate, back-formation joins conversion as a predominantly verb-forming process.
Of course, back-formation is much more difficult to spot and identify than additive word-
formation processes. Deficient inflectional paradigms can be an indicator, as is indicated by 
the rather unusual forms I babysat last week or we sightsaw in London. Paraphrases can also 
contribute as an argument: while „to sit by the baby‟ is a rather poor gloss of to babysit, a 
paraphrase that includes the noun babysitter, e.g. „to act as a babysitter‟ is quite plausible. If 
you keep in mind that genuine verbal compounds do not exist in English, this will also help 
you to realize that verbs like bottle-feed, house-hunt or chain-smoke might be the results of a 
back-formation process.