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The exact status of conversion within word-formation is unclear.
For some scholars (Marchand/10/) conversion is a brunch of derivation, for others (Koziol /Marchand/10/) it is a separate type of word-formation, on a level with derivation and compounding. Whether this distinction has any real effect on the structure of a theory of word-formation is not clear.

Conversion is frequently called zero-derivation, a term which many scholars prefer (Adams, Jespersen, Marchand/1,5,8/). Most writers who use both terms appear to use them as synonyms (although Marchand/10/ is an exception). However, as Lyons/9/ points out, the theoretical implications of the two are rather different. Cruber/2/, for example, argues that to treat ordinary derivation and zero-derivation differently in the grammar is to lose a generalization, since both involve changes of form class, but claims that they can only by treated the same way, if a zero-affix is permitted. Otherwise, he says, derivation can be treated as a rule-governed process, but zero-derivation can’t be; that is, the relation between some napalm and to napalm and other similar pairs must be, considered to be totally coincidental Lyon’s/9/ own view (as noted by Matthews) is that in cases of so-called zero-derivation, an identity operation can be said to have been carried out between the base and the new lexeme. This means that there is a process linking the two lexeme, napalm, lent that this process defines the form of the derived lexeme as being identical to the form of the base. This is also more or less the line taken by Matthews himself, when he speaks of a ‘formation involving zero operation’. The theoretical dubiousness of speaking of zero affixes in language leads Bauer/2/ to prefer the theoretical position enshrined in the term ‘conversion’, especially when this can be given a dynamic interpretation, and that term will be used exclusively from now (on in this book). It should, however, be noted that this is an area of dispute in the literature. For a comprehensive review of the literature on conversion and a discussion of the implication of talking in terms of zero-derivation, the reader is referred to Pannanen.

Productivity.

Conversion is an extremely productive way of producing new words in
English. There do not appear to be morphological restrictions on the forms can undergo conversion, so that compounds, derivatives, acronyms, blends, clipped forms and simplex words are all acceptable inputs to the conversion process. Similarly, all ford classes seem to be able to undergo conversion, and conversion seems to de able to produce words of almost any form class, particularly the open form classes (noun, verb, adjective, adverb ). This seems to suggest that rather than English having specific rules of conversion (rules allowing the conversion of common nouns into verbs or adjectives into nouns, for example) conversion is a totally free process and any lexeme can undergo conversion into any of the open form classes as the need arises. Certainly, if there are constraints on conversion they have yet to de demonstrated. The only partial restriction that it is award of is that discussed by Marchand. Marchand/10/ points out that derived nouns rarely undergo conversion, and particularly not to verb. This is usually because of blocking. To take one of Marchand’s/10/ examples, a derived noun like arrival will not de converted into a verb if that verb means exactly the same as arrive, from which arrival is derived. In cases where blocking is not a relevant concern, even derived nouns can undergo conversion, as is shown by the series a sign > to sign > a signal > to signal and to commit > commission > to commission.

The commonness of conversion can possibly be seen as breaking down the distinction between form classes in English and leading to a system where there are closed sets such as pronouns and a single open set of lexical that can be used as required. Such a move could be seem as part of the trend away from synthetic structure and towards analytic structure which has been fairly typical of the history of English over the last millennium.
This suggestion is, of course highly speculative.

Conversion as a syntactic process.

Conversion is the use of a form which is regarded as being basically of one form class as though it were a member of a different form class, without any concomitant change of form. There are, however, a number of instances where changes of this type occur with such ease and so regularly that many scholars prefer to see that as matters of syntactic usage rather that as word-formation.

The most obvious cases are those where the change of form class is not a major one (such as from noun to verb or adjective to noun ) but a change from one type of noun to another or one type of verb to another. The clearest example of this type is the use of countable nouns as uncountable and vise versa. In some tea, tea is used as an uncountable noun, while in two teas it is used as a countable noun; goat is normally a countable noun, but if a goat is being eaten it is quite in order to ask for a slice of goat, where goat is used as an uncountable noun. In general, given a suitable context, it is possible to use almost any noun on either way: for example, when the Goons took part in a mountain-eating competition, it would have been perfectly possible to ask whether anyone wanted some more mountain, using mountain as an uncountable noun. Similarly, proper nouns can be easily used as common nouns as in Which John do you mean? or The
Athens in Ohio is not as interesting as the Athens in Greece. Intransitive verbs are frequently used as transitive verbs, as in He is running a horse in the Derby or The army flew the civilians to safety. Finally, non- gradable adjectives are frequently used as gradable adjectives, as in She looks very French or New Zealander are said to be more English. Such processes are very near the inflectional end of word-formation.

Another case where it is not completely clear whether or not conversion is involved is with conversion to adjectives. This depends crucially on how an adjective is defined. For some scholars it appears to be the case that the use of an element in attributive position is sufficient for that element to be classified as an adjective. By this criterion bow window, head teacher, model airplane and stone well all contain adjectives formed by conversion formed by conversion. However, it has already been argued that such collocations should be seen as compounds, which makes it unnecessary to view such elements as instances of conversion. Quirk suggest that when such elements can occur not only in attributive position but also in predicative position, it is possible to speak of conversion to an adjective. On the basis of:

*This window is bow

This teacher is head

*This airplane is model

This wall is stone

they would thus conclude that, in the examples above, head and stone but not bow and model have become adjectives by conversion. But this introduces a distinction between two kinds of modifier which is not relevant elsewhere in the grammar and which masks a great deal of similarity. It is therefore not clear that this suggestion is of any great value. This is not meant to imply that conversion to an adjective is impossible, merely that it is least controversial that conversion is involved where the form is not used attributively. Where the form is used attributively, criteria for concluding that conversion has taken place must be spelled out with great care. Apart from those mentioned, possible criteria are the ability to be used in the comparative and superlative, the ability to be modified by and very, the ability to be used as a base for adverbial -ly or nominal -ness suffixation. It must be pointed out that very few adjectives fit all these criteria.

Marginal cases of conversion.

noun shift kind are abstract, discount, import, refill, transfer Gimson/2/, and of verb > adjective shift: abstract, frequent, moderate, perfect. There is a certain amount of evidence that, at least in some varieties of English, these distinction are no longer consistently drawn, and such examples are becoming clear cases of conversion.
Nevertheless, the pattern is still productive, particularly so in the nominalization of phrasal verbs: established examples are show off, walr- over and recent examples are hang-up, put-down.

There is also a kind of partial conversion where a noun ending in a voiceless fricative (but excluding / /) is turned into a verb by replacing the final consonant with the corresponding voiced fricative. The process is no longer productive. Examples are belief / believe, sheath / sheathe, advice / advise.

Clear cases of conversion.

verb conversion can be classified according to whether the noun shows location (to garage the car ) or instrument ( to hammer a nail ) and so on, or according to formal criteria of whether the base is simplex or complex and so on. No attempt is made below to distinguish of these kinds.

verb conversion are to better, to dirty, to empty, to faint, to open, to right and a recent example is to total (a car). Established examples of adjective >noun conversion are relatively rare and are frequently restricted in their syntactic occurrence. For example, the poor cannot be made plural or have any other determiner. Less restricted examples are a daily, a regular, a roast. This type seems to have become much more productive recently, and recent examples includes a creative, a crazy, a double, a dyslexic, a gay, a given, a nasty.

Prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, interjections and even affixes can all act as bases of conversion, as in shown by to up (prices), but me no buts, the hereafter, to heave-no (a recent example) and a maxi (this might be a case of clipping). Moreover, most of these form classes can undergo conversion into more than one form class, so that a preposition down, for example, can become a verb (he downed his beer), a noun (he has a down on me) and possibly an adjective (the down train).

Extrocentric phrase compounds might also be classified here as instances of conversion of whole phrase. Established examples where the phrase acts as a noun are an also-ran, a forget-me-not, a has-been and a recent examples as a don’t-know. An established example where the phrase acts as an adjective is under-the-weather.

Derivation by a zero-morpheme.

The term ‘zero-derivation’.

Derivation without a derivative morpheme occurs in English as well as mother languages. Its characteristic is that a certain stem is used for the formation of a categorically different word without a derivative element being added. In synchronic terminology, they are syntagmas whose determinatum is not expressed in the significant (form). The significate
(content) is represented in the syntagma but zero marked (i.e. it has no counterpart in form): loan vb ‘(make up) loan’, look substantive is ‘(act, instance of) look(ing)’. As the nominal and verbal forms which occur most frequently have no ending end (a factor which seems to have played a part in the coining of the term ‘conversion’ by Kruisinga/8/) are those in which nouns and verbs are recorded in dictionaries, such words as loan, look may come to be considered as ‘converted’ nouns or verbs. It has become customary to speak of the ‘conversion’ of substantive adjectives and verbs.
The term ‘conversion’ has been used for various things. Kruisinga/8/ himself speaks of conversion whenever a word takes on function which is not its basic one, as the use of an adjective as a primary (the poor, the
British, shreds of pink, at his best). He includes quotation words (his «I don’t knows») and the type stone wall (i.e. substantives used as preadjuncts). One is reminded of Bally’s ‘transposition’. Koziol/10/ follows Kruisinga’s/8/ treatment and Biese/4/ adopts the same method. Their standpoints is different. The foregoing examples illustrate nothing but syntactic patterns. That poor (presented by the definite article, restricted to the plural, with no plural morpheme added) can function as a primary, or that government, as in government job, can be used as preadgunct, is a purely syntactic matter. At the most it could be said, with regard to the poor, that an inflectional morpheme understood but zero marked. However inflectional morphemes have a predominantly function character while the addition of lexical content is of secondary importance.
As for government job the syntactic use of primary as a preadjunct is regularly unmarked, so no zero morpheme can be claimed. On the other hand, in government-al, -al adds lexical content, be it ever so little:
‘pertaining to characterizing government’. Therefore governmental is a syntagma while government (job) is not. That the phrase jar-off can be used as a preadjunct is again a syntactic matter. Characterized adverbs do not develop such functions in any case. We will not therefore, used the term conversion. As a matter of fact, nothing is converted, but certain stem are used for the derivation of lexical syntagmas, with the determinatum assuming a zero form. For similar reasons, the term ‘functional change’ is infelicitous. The term itself doesn’t enter another functional category, which becomes quite evident when it is considered the inflected forms.

Endings and derivation.

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