zero derivation
Functional shift process
Zero derivation is the process of converting a word from one part of speech to another without changing its form.
English does this constantly: the noun *email* becomes the verb *email*, the adjective *empty* becomes the verb *empty*.
Also called conversion.
The term comes from linguistics, where derivation typically involves adding affixes—zero derivation adds nothing.
- reanalysisStudying something again
- verbificationConverting words to verbs
- functional shiftWord changing part of speech
- nominalizationConverting words to nouns
- conversionAct of changing states
transposition · word formation · linguistics · language change · lexical semantics · back-formation · hammer · morphemes · text · chair · bottle · brush · part of speech · base · lexical · suffix · morphology · coinage
- word formationaffixes, affixation, roots, infix, morphemes
- etymologyword origins, word history, word origin, etymon, root words
- noun grammarnoun, noun phrase, case, declension, noun clause
morphological process type
zero derivationsuffixation
Adding endings to words
prefixation · affixation · agglutination · inflection · ablaut