Conversion (word formation)

Conversions from adjectives to nouns and vice versa are both very common and unnotable in English; much more remarked upon is the creation of a verb by converting a noun or other word (for example, the adjective clean becomes the verb to clean).

Verbification

Verbification, or verbing, is the creation of a verb from a noun, adjective or other word.

In English

In English, verbification typically involves simple conversion of a non-verb to a verb. The verbs to verbify and to verb, the first by derivation with an affix and the second by zero derivation, are themselves products of verbification (see autological word), and the term to verb is often used more specifically, to refer only to verbification that does not involve a change in form. (Verbing in that specific sense is therefore a kind of anthimeria.)

Many adjectives have become verbs, including adjectives based on Latin passive participles, such as "separate". Usually, at least now, there is a pronunciation difference between the adjective and the verb. (Later this was extended to forming verbs from Latin passive participles even if they were not used as adjectives.)

Examples of verbification in the English language number in the thousands, including some of the most common words such as mail and e-mail, strike, salt, pepper, switch, bed, sleep, ship, train, stop, drink, cup, lure, mutter, dress, dizzy, divorce, fool, merge, to be found throughout the dictionary. Thus, verbification is by no means confined to slang and has furnished English with countless new expressions: "access", as in "access the file", which was previously only a noun, as in "gain access to the file". Similar mainstream examples include "host", as in "host a party", and "chair", as in "chair the meeting". Other formations, such as "gift", are less widespread but still mainstream.

Verbification is a common source of neologisms which can meet opposition from prescriptivist authorities (the verb sense of impact is a well-known example).

However, many such words have become accepted parts of the language after extended use.

In many cases, the verbs were distinct from their noun counterparts in Old English, and regular sound change has made them the same form: these can be reanalysed as conversion.

In constructed languages

In Toki Pona, any content word may function as a noun, verb or adjective depending on syntax; for example, moku may mean food, to eat, or edible.