Definition of aspect

Aspect is both grammatical and lexical ; it is expressed in predicates, especially in v

erb inflections and collocations of verbs.
Example
: It’s beggining to break, / It’s breaking, / it
broke, / it’s Broken.

Aspect is expressed primarily in the predicates of sentences

Generic and specific predications

Stative predicates and dynamic predicates
Durative and punctual
Telic and atelic
Ingressive, continuative, regressive aspect
Prospective and retrospective
Generic and Specific Predications

Generic is the statements about things that we can not change. (regularity)
A. Two and two make four.
B. The Atlantic Ocean separates Africa and South America

Sentences a-c are ‘eternal truths,’ statements about things that we do not expect to
change. They report unbounded situation, or states.
Non generic predication

Non-Generic is statement about things or situation we can change.

a non generic sentence is one expressing an opposed of regularity
Examples :
1a.Stella seems happy.
2b.I have a stomachache

the sentences are about temporary states, they are bounded

2a. Gregory is ALREADY here.
2c. The company does NOT YET manufacture silicon

Sentences 2a-c Contain the same information but the aspectual modifiers call attention
to boundaries
Stative Predicates
Stative Predicates is describe sentence that exist, whether permanent or temporary in nature
Stative : The sentences who never know how many time or the sentence that we do not know how
long the duration is running
a.Geisha arrived here
b.The company started manufacturing silicon chips

Dynamic Predicates
Dynamic is about explanation with duration who was determined and it was
running in accordance with the time that has been made / as usual
Dynamic : The sentences that we just know the timing from begin to ending.
a.Something moved
b.Employes are working 8 hours/day

The conclusion :
Stative : The sentences who never know how many time or the sentence that we do not know how
long the duration is running.
Dynamic : The sentences that we just know the
timing from begin to ending.
TELIC
Telic means "having an end”

Telic verbs describe actions with a clear, foreseeable end.

Example:
"She built a house. He drank a cup of coffee. I ran home.“

ATELIC
George was waiting -Sandra was holding the baby.
Sandra was swimming-George was running
The predicates do not have an end or a goal; they are atelic.
Atelic is the sentence are carried out and have a result.
Actually, no sentence or activities that no results but here stated that Atelic is
something existing activities have goal but the goal like often activity but that
doesntmean we do things that are included what we like.
Answer

1. The soup cooled in ten minutes.(Telic)

2. The soup cooled for ten minutes.(Atelic)

3. She is writing a note.(Telic)

4. She is writing notes.(Atelic)

Example :

Ingressive aspect: punctual verb to express the beginni

ng.

1. Donald gets to/arrives at/reaches the door.

Continuative aspect: durative verb that express an ong

oing

1. Donald stays at/remains at the door.

Egressive aspect : punctual verb which express the en

d

1. Donald leaves/departs from the door.

Answer

1. I’m reading.(continuative)

2. He reaches the summit of the mountain.(ingressive)

3. They stopped talking. (egressive)

4. They are starting quarelling.(ingressive)

5. I tried to begin to work.(ingressive)

Aspectual verbs

Aspectual verbs (called aspectualizers by some scholars)

which express some aspect of an event.

An event, by definition, has duration

Ex:
The meeting is beginning now.
The game went on for hours.
Prospective and retrospective
Prospective verbs; they are retrospective verbs. Are
oriented toward later happenings. Verbs like apologize and deny

Ex: Ex :
1. Tata is thinking of 1. Edgar apologized for missing the meeting.
visiting her grandmother. (or,....for having missed the meeting)

The prospective illustrate a prospective form.

They are to leave.

Are we to wait here?

This form, be+to+verb expresses a ‘looking forward’;

The perfect or retrogressive

They have left illustrates a verb structure which is traditionally called ‘present perfe
ct.’ A better term might be present retrospective form.

The present perfect, or present retrospective, form, in affirmative statements, refers

to events that occurred in the past and situations that began in the past and which ar
e seen as relevant ‘now,’ at the present time.

Ex :
The house is empty now.
It has been empty for over a year
The progressive

The progressive form indicates that the activity predicated is distributed over a perio
d of time with an implied end point, but it need not be distributed continuously over
that time.

progressive form: They’re arriving tomorrow, The shop is opening next week, Mr
Edwards is retiring in May.

The progressive can be used with atelic predicates to make a more dramatic stateme
nt of what is slated to happen in the near future.
QUIZ

1. The school is empty now, It has been empty for over a year 1. Retrogressive
2. We asked Rizal to drive slower. 2. Prospective
3. The meeting is beginning now. 3. Aspectual
4. They’re arriving tomorrow, The shop is opening next week.
4. Progresive
5. Retrospective
5. We denied seeing the report.
Person Deixis
Normally realized by personal pronouns and it
is concern with encoding the roles of the partic
ipants in the speech situation in which a given
utterance was produced.

• which ‘point’ to the participants in any speec

h act
I, you and we
• when they are used to refer to others in the
environment
he, she, it and they
locative expressions
Locative deictic expressions denote the spatial l
ocation of people in objects relative to the part
icipants in the speech.

• which respectively indicate entities close to o

r removed from the speakers
this /these that / those

• which designate space close to the speaker

or farther away
here / there
temporal expressions
• These last are all relative to the time
when they are used.

now, then, yesterday, today, tomorr

ow, last week, next month and so on
 Example in sentences
Words which can be deictic are not always so.
• Today and tomorrow
Deictic : “We can’t go today, but tomorrow will be fine.”
Not deictic : “Today’s costly apartment buildings may be tomorrow’s
slums.”
• Here and there
Deictic : “James hasn’t been here yet. Is he there with you?”
Not deictic : “The children were running here and there.”
• You is not deictic when used with the meaning ‘one; any person
or persons,’
Not deictic : “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him
drink.”
• They has a generalized, non-deictic reference to people in gener
al, especially those in charge of some endeavor or other, as in “T
hey say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” “
They don’t make good cider the way they used to.”
Definiteness

Is a feature of a noun phrase selected by a speaker to

convey his assumption that the hearer will be able to i
dentify the referent of the noun phrase, usually becaus
e it is the only thing of its kind in the context of the utt
erance, or because it is unique in the universe of disco
urse.
types of definiteness :
1. Proper names : e.g. John, Queem Victoria
2. Personal pronouns : e.g. He, she , it
3. Phrases introduced by a definite determiner such as
the, that, this
Anaphora

• Anaphora is a kind of a secondary reference in which a previou

s reference is recalled by use of a special words or equivalent l
exemes.
• For Example:
Jack and Jill tried to lift the box and push it onto the top
shelf.
However, he slipped and fell to the floor.
she
it
they

each the four pronouns illustrated here has a particular scope of r

eferances.
 Occupational nouns
• Occupational nouns such as: secretary,teacher,cashie
r,doctor
• Which don’t indicate gender, are more common in mo
dern English than pairs like : actor/actress, waiter/wa
itress
Example:
I asked the secretary to telephone Mr. Letterman
Referential ambiguity occurs when
1. an indefinite referring expression may be specific or not,
For example: I wanted to buy a newspaper.
(Here a newspaper may refer to a specific newspaper or some newspaper,any new
spaper.)
2. anaphora is unclear because a personal pronoun, he, she, it or they,
can be linked to either of two referring expressions:
For example: Jack told Ralph that a visitor was waiting for him.
3. the pronoun you is used generically or specifically:
For example:If you want to get ahead, you have to work hard.
4. a noun phrase with every can have distributed reference or collected
reference:
For example: I’m buying a drink for everybody here.
(One drink for all or one drink for each?)
Lexical Relations
means two or more things are connected with wo
rds of language.

Example :
father and mother
Employer and employee
Big and little
Red, yellow and blue
Lexeme and Lexicon

A lexeme is a min All the lexemes of

imal unit that can language constitu
take part in referr te the lexicon of
ing or predicating the language, an
. d all the lexemes
that you know m
ake up your pers
onal lexicon.
Two Approaches to Describe Lexic
al Relations:
1. SEMANTIC FIELD THEORY
2. TRUTH CONDITIONAL SEMANT
ICS
Semantic Field Theory

Field theory is an attempt to classify lexe

mes according to shared and differentiatin
g features.
E.g.:
Wasp, hornet, bee ‘ flying, stinging
insects’
Moth and housefly ‘ insects that f
ly but do not sting’
Ant and termite ‘ names of inse
cts that neither fly sting’
Truth Conditional Semantics

It studies lexical relations by comparing pr

edications that can be made about the sa
me referring expression.
Its task is to account to the meaning rela
tions between different in a language.
Three such relation are:
Paraphrase
Entailment
Contradiction
Paraphrases
is a sentence which expresses the same prepo
sition as another sentence.
Example 1:
A B
a. My phone was cheap
T T
b. My phone was inexpensive
Example 2: F F

a. Lily sold the book to a grandson of Mr. Bamb

ang.
b. A grandson of Mr. Bambang bought the book
from Lily.

Thus (a) has the same truth value as (b), so that

if (a) is true, (b) is true and vice versa.
Entailments
is the relation between two prepositions.

Example :
a. My blouse is (entirely) blue.
b. My blouse is blue.

Look how this would work for the example:

Q : If (a) is true that my blouse is (entirely) bl
ue, is (b) true that my blouse is blouse?
A : Yes, it is true.
Q : If (b) is true that my blouse is blue, is (
a) true that my blouse is (entirely) blue?
A : It can be true or false.

(a) Entails (b) so that if (a) then automatica

A lly (b). B

T T

F T or F

F F

T or F T
Contradiction
is a negation of the other prepositions

Example :
• My phone was cheap.
• My phone was expensive.

A B

T F

F T

T F

F T
Homonymy
Is the state or quality of a given word’
s having the same spelling and the sa
me sound or pronunciation as anothe
Example:
r word but with different meaning .
Left (Past tense=Meninggalkan)
He left the room 30 minutes ago
Left (Adverb=Kiri)
Turn left at the post office
Polysemy
Is the state or phenomenon in which the w
ords that have more than one meaning.

Example:
Simple (e.g. English is very extrem
ely plain subject)
Plain
With nothing added / not decor
ated in anyway (e.g. This blouse is too
plain)
Synonymy
Is the state or phenomenon in which the w
ords that sound is different but have the sa
me meaning as another word or phrase.
Examples:
o Small = Little
o Big = Large
o Mother and father = Parents
o Politician = Statesman
Hyponymy
Is the state or phenomenon that shows the
relationship between more general term an
d the more specific instances of it.
Example:
The lexical representation of :
Red, yellow, green, blue, black, is col
or.
Thus we can see that “Red” is a hypo
nym of “color” and so on.
Definition of Antonym

• Antonym is the state or phenomenon in

which the words have the sense relation
which involve the opposite of meaning.
• The concrete form of Antonym is called “
Antonym” (opposites)
Kinds of Antonym
Complementary Pairs

• It refers to the existence of pairs that the d

enial of one, implies the assertion of the ot
her.
• Examples:
– Male X Female
– Alive X Dead
– Present X Absent
– Awake X Asleep
• Thus, if one is not male, then one is certain
ly female; if one is not present, then he/sh
e must be absent, and so on.
Gradable Pairs/ Graded Antonym

• Graded Antonym refers to the words related to the

object they modify.
• The words themselves do not provide an absolute sc
ale.
• Examples:
– Big X Small
– Good X Bad
– Fast X young
• Thus, when we say that “a fly is bigger than anothe
r” we imply that big is to be the context of ‘flies’
• Another fact dealing with the type is that ‘a small el
ephant’ for example is much bigger than ‘a big mo
use’
• Another characteristic is that one is mark
ed and the other is unmarked.
• The unmarked member is the one used i
n questions of degree
– Ordinarily asked, ‘how high is the mountain
?’ (not how low is the mountain?)
– Answered, ‘ten thousand feet high’, but nev
er ‘ten thousand feet low’
Relational Opposites

• Refers to the pair of words that display symmetry in

heir meaning.
If X gives Y to Z, then Z
receives Y from X
• Relationships between certain semantic features can
reveal knowledge about antonyms.

• These show that an word that bears with semantic p

roperty “married” such as “wife”, is understood to b
e lack the semantic property “single” and conversely
, an word that bears the semantic property “single”,
such as “bachelor”, will not have the property “marri
ed”
• Commonly relational pairs :
– Buy X sell
– Push X pull
– Command X serve
– Give X take
– Teach X learn
– Master X servant
– Teacher X pupil
– Doctor X patient
Antonym Relations
Binary Antonym Non-binary Antonym
• Also called hemispheric anton • There are opposite ends
ym
• It is two words that opposite of a scale that includes v
and cannot be measured, like arious intermediate term
an On and Off in electricity.
• There is no middle ground s.
• Binary adjectives considered u • Very gradable
ngradable
• Example: • It ca be easily modified
– Dead X Alive
– Very old
– Open X Shut
– Clean X Dirty – Rather young
• It can be modified
– Quiet dead
– Wide open
Symmetry : Interchange

• If X is Symmetrical predicate, the relation

ship a X b can also be expressed as b X
a and as a and b X (each other)
• Example:
– Line AB is parallel to line CD
– Line CD is parallel to line AB
– Line AB and CD is parallel each other
Reciprocity

• A relationship that can be expressed b e

ach other or one another.
• If X is a reciprocal predicate, the relation
ship a X b does not entail b X a, but a a
nd b X entail a X b and b X a.
• Example:
– The truck collided with the bus (a)
– The truck and the bus collided. (b)
• Semantic Role
A semantic role is the underlying relat
ionship that a participant has with the m
ain verb in a clause.
Semantic role is the actual role a parti
cipant plays in some real or imagined sit
uation, apart from the linguistic encodin
g of those situations.
• The semantic analysis of a simple sentence:
– Referring expressions : Actual things, per
sons
– Predicate :
• Relationship between the things, perso
ns,
• To describe how the things and/or peo
ple
participate
E.g:
• John opened the door with the key
RE P RE RE
 Type of participant role
1. AGENT
• The AGENT of a sentence is the PERSON del
iberately carrying out the action described. (
Hurford et al., 2007:245)
• e.g.
1. John opened the door with the key
2. A burglar ransacked my house
3. My mother’s bowl was broken by a
thief
2. Affected
• The AFFECTED participant is THE THING upon w
hich the action is carried out. (Hurford et al., 20
07:245-246). Some semantics refer to the affect
ed participant as the PATIENT (2007:246)
• E.g.
1. John opened the door with the key
2. Muriel dealt the cards carefully to eac
h player
3. The tree was felled by a single blow f
rom Paul’s axe
3. Instrument
• “The Instrument is THE THING (hardly ever a pe
rson) by means of which the action is carried o
ut.” (Hurford et al., 2007:246).
• “preposition which is typically used to express i
nstrument is WITH” (2007:250)
• E.g.
1. John opened the door with the key
2. Seymour sliced the salami with a knif
e
3. Hamish used a screwdriver to open th
e tin
Answer

1. Floyd Smashed the glass with the hammer

Agent Affected Instrument
2. The hammer smashed the glass
Instrument Affected
3. Crippen dissolved the body with the acid
Agent Affected Instrument
4. The acid dissolved the body
Instrument Affected
5. The body dissolved
Affected
4. Location
• “The role of Location is played by any expre
ssion referring to the PLACE where the actio
n described by a sentence takes place.” (Hurf
ord et al., 2007:249)
• E.g.
1. Caesar was assassinated in Rome
2. I’m meeting Dick at Waverley Station
3. Tallahassee is humid in summer
5. Beneficiary
• The Beneficiary is the PERSON for whose benefi
t or to whose detriment the action described by
the sentence is carried out. (Hurford et al., 2007
:249)
• It is not always be positively affected, but could
be negatively affected (2007:249).
• E.g.
1. Keith gave Gill a replica of the Venus
de Milo
2. Alan was sent a special offer from th
e Reader’s Digest
3. Glenn bought a micro-computer for hi
s son
Answer

1. It is Windy in Edinburgh
Agent Location
2. The Prime Minister was sent a letter bo
mb
Beneficiary Affected
from the terrorists
Agent
3. Ruth knitted a sweater for Bryan
Agent Affected Beneficiary
6. Experiencer
• “The Experiencer is typically a PERSON who is
mentally aware of, perceives, or experiences the
action or state described by the sentence”. (Hurf
ord et al., 2007:251)
• “Experience means = you experience something
, it happens to you, or you feel it ” (Cambridge
Dictionary)
• E.g.
1. The children heard the loud noise
2. Jane saw a movie last night
3. Janice became sick when she heard th
e news
7. Theme
• “The THEME participant is a THING or PERS
ON whose location is described or that is pe
rceived by an Experiencer. “ (Hurford et al., 2
007:251)
• E.g.
1. The children heard the loud noise
2. Jack saw a play last week
3. The Honda belongs to Jim
GRAMMATICAL POSITIONS IN THE SEN
TENCE
a. Subject Position
Preceding main verb
E.g. 1. John opened the door with the key.
2. The worker moved the beam with the crane
b. Object Position
Immediately following main verb
E.g. 1. John opened the door with the key.
2. The worker moved the beam with the crane
c. Complement Position
After the verb, but not immediately, often after preposition.
E.g. 1. John opened the door with the key.
2. The worker moved the beam with the crane.
THE POSSIBLE COMBINATION OF ROLE &
GRAMMATICAL POSITION

1. The most common combinations :

Agent – Subject and Affected – Object
2. The rare combinations :
Agent in Object position, and Instrume
nt in Object position
3. The most versatile position :
Subject position andComplement positi
on
4. The least versatile : Object position
Answer

1. The dynamite blew the safe open

Instrument Affected
2. The hut was set alight by vandals
Affected Agent
3. Alfred burnt the cakes
Agent Affected
4. Charles built Emily a mahogany bookcase
Agent Affected
5. Sidney swatted the fly with his hat
Agent Affected Instrument
D.The Role Frame of Verb

• Participant roles can be included in the d

ictionary. In the dictionary entry for each
verb in the language there will be a ‘role
frame’
• The parentheses indicate that the roles a
re optional with this verb
• The role not enclosed by parentheses is
obligatory (Hurford et al., 2007:253).
a. Open (AGENT AFFECTED INSTRUMENT)
1. John opened the door
2. The key opened the door
3. The door opened
b. BLOW UP: (AGENT AFFECTED INSTRUMENT
)
1. Vacek blew up the tank with a hand grenade
2. The hand grenade blew up the tank
3. The tank blew up
c. GIVE: (AGENT AFFECTED BENEFICIARY)
1. John gave Mary a book
2. Mary was given a book
3. A book was given to Mary
 DERIVATION

Formation of a new word or inflectable stem f

or another word or stem. It typically occurs b
y the addition of an affix.

Creation of the new words by modification of

a root without the addition of other roots. Of
ten change in part of speech

Process of forming new words according to a

regular pattern on the basis of pre-existing w
ords.
MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSES OF
DERIVATION
•A changing in a stem to adjust its meanin
g to fit its syntactic and communicational c
ontext.
•Changing the shape of an existing word b
y adding prefix or suffix morpheme to an e
xisting root morpheme
•Re-play
•Slow-ness
SYNTACTICAL PROCESSES OF DER
IVATION
Changing the part of speech of a word
Verb to noun : teach - teacher
Adj to noun : red - redness
 Morphological Pro Syntactic Process
cess

Wide : Widen

wasp : Waspish

Table : Tabulate

Bake : Bakery

Avoid : Avoidable

Honest : Honesty
 Morphological Proces Syntactic Process
s

Wide : Widen Suffix-en Adjective to Verb

wasp : Waspish Suffix-ish Noun to Adjective

Table : Tabulate Suffix-ate Noun to Verb

Bake : Bakery Suffix-ery Verb to Noun

Avoid : Avoidable Suffix-able Verb to Adjective

Honest : Honesty Suffix-y Adjective to Noun

SEMANTIC PROCESSES OF DERIVA
TION
•Producing a new sense
•Describing the meanings that are added
when a verbs becomes a noun, a noun bec
omes an adjective, and adjective becomes
a noun
 Morphological P Syntatic Process Semantic Proces
rocess s

Laugh : Laughter Add suffix-ter Change Verb to Produce word de

Noun noting an act or
an activity

Teach : Teacher Add suffix-er Change Verb to Produce word de

Noun noting an agent

Red : Redness Add suffix-ness Change Adjective Produce word de

to Noun noting a property
INCHOATIVE

Denotes the beginning ,or coming to existance, of some states

CAUSATIVE
Denotes a state resulting from some action

RESULTATIVE

Form denotes an action which causes something to happen

CONVERSION/ ZERO DERIVATION

Creation of a word from an existing word without any chane in form.

SPEECH ACT

Speech acts are the speaker’s utteranc

es which convey meaning and make listen
ers do specific things (Austin, 1962).

Actions permormed via utterances are

generally called speech act
Performative Utterance

Austin argues that, instead of saying s

omething a speaker may be doing somethi
ng or by performing an action.

There are two kind of performative utteran

ce:
1. Implicit performative
2. Explicit performative
Constative Utterance

Constatives are certain utterances whi

ch do not denote an action. These contai
n following characteristic :
- Describe or report something
- The sentences can be true or false
- It’s “just” saying something
Illocutions

Illocutionary speech act is the performance of

the act of saying something with a specific in
tention

Example:
“There’s too much homework in this subject” (
opinion)
“I will do my homework later” (promise)
“Go do your homework!” (order)
Perlocutions

Perlocutionary speech act happens when w

hat the speaker says has an effect on the l
istener.
It’s the speaker’s expectation to the listene
r.

Example:
“Texting while driving kills – you, your love
d ones, other people!” (the listener won’t d
o it)
Proposition in Relation to Illocutions

Proposition can be defined as an aspect of an

illocution. It points out to quality or associatio
n of an object, situation or event. The concer
n is on what the speaker’s purpose to express
a proposition.

Example:
We can say “The cake is delicious” in a partic
ular way to make the listener realize that we s
ay it sarcastically which means the cake is bad
.
1. Semantic universals
• A semantics universal is any aspects of mea
ning that is somehow represented in all lan
guages.
• Formal universals are general characteristics
or rules of language construction such as
must be postulated by anyone who aims to
construct a general linguistic theory.
• Substantive universals are universal charact
eristics of human language in terms of what
units or elements or components a languag
eE.g.contains.
colour; eleven basic colour terms: black, white, red, green, blue,
yellow, brown, purple, pink, orange, and grey
2. Dictionary and its lexical entri
es
• A dictionary is an alphabetical listing of words a
nd their meaning.
• Lexical entries, the entry in a dictionary of infor
mation about a word.
• A lexical entry is a combination of three specific
ations:
1. A morphological specification (Giving the form
of the word in terms of stems and affixes)
2. A syntactical specification (Classifying the wor
d in terms of its distributional potential within
sentences)
3. A semantic specification (or definition)
3. How meaning are arranged in a le
xical entry
• The entries in a dictionary should be arrang
ed in such way as to enable the reader to fi
nd the information quickly and correctly.
• Alphabetical, based on the formal shape in
the lexical unit
• Semantic, based on the semantic content of
the lexical unit
• Casual, which is the mixture of the two or a
general arrangement
The semantic spesification

Nouns
 Type A: Person

 Type A represents definitions of agent nouns in a wide

sense: that is, nouns denoting the person who has

some active role in a relationship.
 i.e bookseller, king, teacher, actor, coach, etc.

 Type B: Person

 Type B represents definitions of ‘passive nouns’ which

are the converse of nouns of Type A.
 i.e pupil, subject, employee, etc.
The semantic spesification
 Type C: Animate
 Type C includes definitions of ‘function nouns’, that is
nouns denoting objects which are identified by their
functions.
 That words of this kind lend themselves to definition
by functional criteria (rather than concrete physical
properties) is shown by the lack of any exhaustive
characterization of their meaning in terms of
appearance, shape, consistency, etc
 i.e razor, seat, blackboard, path, vehicle, garment, etc.
 Type D: Part
 Type D is the large category of ‘part nouns’, whether
these refer to human body, parts of living things, etc.
 i.e head, body, arm, finger, wing, roof, window, etc.
The semantic spesification

Adjectives
 Type A

 Type A shows the definition of a single downgraded

predication (to be expressed by means of relative

clause)
 i.e literate, legible, pitiful, wealthy, etc.

 Type B

 Type B is similar with Type A, except that the

downgraded predication is negative.
 i.e illiterate, blind, deaf, etc.
The semantic spesification
Verbs
 Type A (DO, EVENT)
 i.e John moved/jumped/left.
 Type B (DO, EVENT)
 i.e John looked at/listened to the clock.
 Type C (BECOME, STATE)
 i.e The door opened/shut; The bus stopped; She awoke.
 Type D (BECOME, STATE)
 i.e James learned/found out/remembered/forgot my name.
 Type E (DO, BECOME, STATE)
 i.e Sue stopped the bus; She woke up the children.
 Type F (DO, BECOME, STATE)
 i.e He gave/sold/lent me a book.
The semantic spesification
Verbs
 Type A (DO, EVENT) : intransitive action verb
 Type B (DO, EVENT) : transitive action verb
 Type C (BECOME, STATE) : intransitive inceptive
verb
 Type D (BECOME, STATE) : transitive inceptive
verb
 Type E (DO, BECOME, STATE) : monotransitive action-

inceptive verb
 Type F (DO, BECOME, STATE) : distransitive action-

inceptive verb
4. Recognizing conversion in a dicti
onary
• Conversion is the word formation process in which a w
ord of one grammatical form becomes a word of anot
her grammatical form without any changes to spelling
or pronunciation.
• For example, a decade ago I would have sent you an e
mail (noun) whereas now I can either send you an ema
il (noun) or simply email (verb) you. The original noun
email experienced conversion, thus resulting in the ne
w verb email.
• Noun to Verb
e.g: My grandmother bottled (verb) the juice
and canned (verb) the pickles.
My grandmother put the juice in a bottle (n
oun) and the pickles in a can (noun).
• She microwaved (verb) her lunch.
She heated her lunch in the microwave (no
un).
• The doctor eyed (verb) my swollen eye (nou
n).
• Verb to Noun
e.g: We need to increase (verb) our productivity to see an increase (
noun) in profits.
Conversion also occurs, although less frequently, to and from oth
er grammatical forms. For example:
• adjective to verb: green → to green (to make environmentally frie
ndly)
• preposition to noun: up, down → the ups and downs of life
• conjunction to noun: if, and, but → no ifs, ands, or buts
• interjection to noun: ho ho ho → I love the ho ho hos of Christm
astime