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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. A modern case of zero derivation in slang from popular culture might be seen in cringe, in the noun sense of "awkwardness, inducement of second-hand embarrassment".
In linguistics, this is called conversion; when a noun becomes a verb, it is a denominal verb, when a verb becomes a noun, it is a deverbal noun. In English, many nouns have become verbs. For example, the noun "book" is now often used as a verb, as in the example "Let's book the flight".
It may involve the use of an affix (such as with employ → employee), or it may occur via conversion (such as with the derivation of the noun run from the verb to run). In contrast, a derivation resulting in a verb may be called verbalization (such as from the noun butter to the verb to butter ).
Nouns are also created by converting verbs and adjectives, as with the words talk and reading (a boring talk, the assigned reading). Nouns are sometimes classified semantically (by their meanings) as proper and common nouns (Cyrus, China vs frog, milk) or as concrete and abstract nouns (book, laptop vs embarrassment, prejudice). [4]
Nominalization can refer, for instance, to the process of producing a noun from another part of speech by adding a derivational affix (e.g., the noun "legalization" from the verb "legalize"), [2] but it can also refer to the complex noun that is formed as a result.
the verb headhunt is a back-formation of headhunter; the verb edit is formed from the noun editor [5] the word televise is a back-formation of television; The process is motivated by analogy: edit is to editor as act is to actor. This process leads to a lot of denominal verbs.
Some verbs are formed from nouns and adjectives by conversion, as with the verbs snare, nose, dry, and calm. The base form is used in the following ways: It serves as the bare infinitive, and is used in the to-infinitive (e.g. to write); for uses see § Non-finite forms below.
A variety of semantic relations are expressed between the base noun X and the derived verb. Although there is no simple relationship between the affix and the semantic relation, [2] there are semantic regularities that can define certain subclasses. [3] Such subclasses include: [1] [4] [5] resultative: to make something into an X, e.g ...