Re: Linguistic term for ease of changing word-class (was: 'out-' affix in conlangs?)

BTW I once read a scholarly book by a true professional linguist on the ease of
forming new words of one class from words of another class.  I forget the title
of the book and the name of the book's author (though I still have it --
somewhere -- ...)

However, I remember it said (among other things) that in most languages
(though I recall only the English examples) it was particularly easy to make a
verb from another word-class, especially from a noun.  (example: "to pipe
someone aboard". "Pipe" was a noun; it can however be used as a verb,
whether transitive or intransitive, with no morphology having been done on it
at all -- a kind of "zero-derivation".)

I can quote two other writers on the subject, however;
"Verbing weirds language." (Calvin & Hobbes).

Note that the noun "verb" becomes (via "zero-derivation") the verb "verb"
which is morphologically altered to the action-nominal "verbing".  Note that the
adjective "weird" is zero-derived into the verb "weird".

Also note that originally -- back in the mists of English etymology -- "weird"
was a noun.  But in more modern English it has become an adjective.

Reply