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SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS IN VERBALIZATION 

Sevər ORUCOVA 

AMEA , Dilçilik İnstitutu 

[e-mail] 

 The process of coining a new word in a different part of speech without adding any derivative elements is called 

conversion. This linguistic term is widely spread in English. The main reason for this widespread development is 

insufficiency of morphological elements that can show to what part of speech the word belongs.  

Recent research confirms that conversion is the predominant method of English verb-formation. In linguistics this 

structural-semantic type of conversion is called verbalization. In modern English in the process of verbalization the verbs 

are mainly formed by nouns and adjectives. Especially we come across semantic related groups in the verbalization model 

N→V (noun→verb). The lexical meaning of the verb points out the instrument, the place, the agent, the cause, the result 

and the time of action. The semantic related groups on verbalization are as follows: 

1. Verbs based on nouns denoting some part of human body show a regularity of instrumental meaning: to face-to have 

or turn the face towards, finger- to touch with fingers, etc. 

2. Verbs based on nouns denoting animals show the actions characteristic of animals: to dog- to follow (smb / smth) 

closely, to fox-to trick, etc.  

3. Verbs based on nouns denoting time mean to spend one’s time somewhere at the period of time expressed by the 

noun: to winter-to spend winter somewhere, to weekend- to spend one’s weekend somewhere, etc 

4. Verbs based on nouns denoting objects means gain, dispose of that object: to paper- to put wall-paper on, to dust- to 

remove the dust from, etc.  

 While researching above shown semantic related groups, the second group arouses a great interest. Like in other 

conversion groups, here we observe transformation of meaning. For example, in the meaning of “to devour” the appropriate 

verb is formed by a noun “a shark” (fish), but in the meaning of “to cheat to gain money”, the second meaning of the noun 

“person who cheats to gain money” is used. The result of semantic transformations on the word-building level is the 

appearance of derived verbs with new independent meanings of metaphorical character. Conversion pairs of the second 

micro group mean either action of those animals or action of people directed towards animals or similar with their actions. 

So after primary consideration next lexical semantic groups can be distinguished: 

1. First lexical semantic group has the meaning “to hunt the given animals”: 

To bird- to fowl 

To kangaroo- to hunt kangaroos 

2. This lexical semantic group means “to hunt with the help of given animal “: 

To hawk – to hunt with hawk, falcon  

3. Lexical semantic group with the meaning “to act, associated with the actions of animals metaphorically, but not 

imitating them directly” This group includes the verbs with more interesting semantics. For example: 

To hound- to worry, to pursue 

To ape- to copy (smb’s speech or behavior)  

Other lexical semantic groups can also be added to this list.  

 As it is proven here, in the case of verbalization, the verbs are mostly polysemantic and have other meanings in 

addition to those indicated.  For example, conversion pair stone→to stone . Verb formed by the noun of the same root “to 

stone” means “to throw stones at”, “to take the stone out of fruit” (Oxford dictionary).  

The semantic relationships occur not only in the model Noun→Verb, but we can also observe these semantic related 

groups in the model Adj→Noun. For example, cool→to cool dry→to dry, narrow→to narrow, etc.  

 Word building analyses of these verbs shows that the main way of its formation is conversion. It must be noted that 

the verbs formed by conversion concerns neutral or colloquial speech. It goes without saying that very much yet remains to 

be done to research thoroughly these complex relationships.  

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