Isabel Balteiro Libri

This book received the Leocadio Martín Mingorance award This book describes three of the main problems that the word-formation process known as conversion presents, namely those related to its definition, its delimitation, and its directionality. The latter constitutes, however, the main focus of the study, which is based on a corpus of over seven hundred lexical units and, more specifically, on 231 actual noun-verb conversion pairs. Considering that directionality is intrinsic to conversion, the main question is whether it is always possible to establish the direction of conversion or whether it is possible to do so only in some cases. Moreover, the study reveals what ‘type’ of directionality is involved, that is, whether the process is unidirectional, bidirectional or multi-directional. In order to answer these questions, both diachronic (etymology and dates of first records) and synchronic criteria (semantic dependence, restriction of usage, semantic range, semantic pattern, phonetic shape, morphologic type, stress, and the principle of relative markedness) are analysed and assessed.

This work provides new insights into the controversial process of conversion or zero-derivation. It critically reviews previous theories and approaches, aiming to establish a new definition while discussing the appropriateness of terminology and identifying key characteristics. The study explores whether a change in category or word-class is essential, whether syntactic function or word-class change should take precedence, and whether the outcome is a derived word, two independent units, or one form with two distinct units. Additionally, it distinguishes conversion from other linguistic phenomena with similar outcomes, such as levelling, ellipsis, and shortening, while categorizing its types, including partial and total conversion and changes in secondary word-class. The conclusion asserts that conversion, despite appearing to be a catch-all for various linguistic processes involving formally identical elements, can be clearly defined and distinguished from similar phenomena. The work has received the national prize “Leocadio Martín Mingorance” for English Language and Linguistics, awarded by AEDEAN, recognizing its significant contribution to the field.