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Paradigms in Word Formation: Theory and applications
Edited by Alba E. Ruz, Cristina Fernández-Alcaina and Cristina Lara-Clares
[Studies in Language Companion Series 225] 2022
► pp. 155–180

Chapter 7
Paradigmatic aspects of deverbal noun conversion in English

| Universität Potsdam

In this paper, I seek to identify some recurrent and predictable patterns in the formation of deverbal converted nouns in English (to climb > the climb), which crucially differ from denominal conversion verbs (the bottle > to bottle) in showing only limited productivity. I will argue, however, that noun conversion exhibits regularities with respect to the morphological make-up and the semantic class of the base verbs, as well as to the noun’s interpretation in comparison to other competing suffix-based nominalizations, which I will describe as creating relatively stable derivational series within derivational paradigms (Hathout & Namer 2019).

Keywords: deverbal noun conversion, semantic verb classes, morphological complexity, action nominalization, derivational paradigms
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Database and methodology
  • 3.Morphological patterns
    • 3.1Prefixes
    • 3.2The suffix -ate
    • 3.3Preposed particles
    • 3.4Postposed particles
    • 3.5Summary on morphological patterns
  • 4.Verb classes and interpretation
    • 4.1Verbs of change of state (70 nouns; 11% of the PDE database)
    • 4.2Verbs of motion (74 nouns; 12% of the PDE database)
    • 4.3Verbs of emission, verbs of sounds made by animals, and verbs of communication (56 nouns; 9% of the PDE database)
    • 4.4Psych verbs (15 nouns; 2% of the PDE database)
    • 4.5Summary on verb classes
  • 5.Paradigmatic aspects of converted nouns among deverbal nominalizations
    • 5.1Deverbal nominalization in English
    • 5.2Derivational paradigms for action nominalizations
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 September 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.225.07ior
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