Nominalization and Conversion

Nominalization and Conversion Nominalization and Conversion Nominalization and Conversion By Mark Nichol Every field of endeavor has its vocabulary, and the business world, for better or worse, has contributed significantly to the English language with jargon- an insider language that often obfuscates when it should clarify and complicates when it should simplify. This post discusses two categories of such word adaptation. Nominalization is morphological change though suffixation- the creation of a noun by attaching a suffix to an existing noun or another part of speech. For example, pomposity derives from pompous, corporatism comes from corporate, and humanization results from nominalization of humanize (and, of course, nominalization is itself a nominalization of nominal, which simply means â€Å"pertaining to a name or naming,† though it often has a sense of â€Å"in name only†). This neologistic strategy is not inherently inadvisable; it is, after all, how we label concepts that help us understand the world. But writers can get carried away, piling up nominalizations into a formidable heap of sesquipedalian pedantry. When you find yourself collecting such constructions, aid comprehension by breaking the discussion down into more conversational prose- describe with a phrase what one word can do more concisely but not necessarily more coherently. The second category, conversion (also called zero derivation), sometimes takes this disassembly too far in the opposite direction. Here, one part of speech is repurposed, without alteration, into another, as when verbs become nouns. Some examples are well worn: Disconnect, for one, has become increasingly ubiquitous since its coinage several decades ago to describe a break or disruption between two entities or parties or between one entity or party and a concept. But other venerable words have taken on new senses: For example, build, which as a noun has long referred to a person or animal’s size and shape, now also denotes the development of a procedure or a system. Fail has existed for some time as a noun in the phrase â€Å"without fail† and in the context of a financial deal, but now it is an everyday truncation of failure. And read, employed for decades to refer to something read or the act of reading or time spent reading, has more recently developed as a casual alternative to analysis or opinion in such comments as â€Å"What’s your read on that?† Meanwhile, a new generation of upstart conversions has entered the lexicon since the passing of the last millennium: Writers refer to an ask, or what is expected or requested of someone. Solution is passà ©; one now achieves a solve. And the cost of something is often referred to in corporate contexts as the spend. It’s likely too late for an undo for some of these words, but others may quietly disappear, while those that remain eventually become as unobjectionable as disconnect as a noun. But unless you’re in the thick of the business realm (and perhaps even then), maintain an aversion to conversion. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Spelling category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Useful Stock Phrases for Your Business Emails41 Words That Are Better Than Good50 Plain-Language Substitutions for Wordy Phrases

Intonation Phrases in Phonetics

Intonation Phrases in Phonetics In phonetics, an intonation phrase is a stretch (or chunk) of spoken material that has its own intonation pattern (or tune). Also called an  intonation group, phonological phrase, tone unit, or tone group. The intonation phrase (IP) is the basic unit of intonation. In a phonetic analysis, the vertical bar symbol (|) is used to represent the boundary between two intonation phrases. Examples and Observations When speakers produce words in a row, we can usually observe that they are structured: individual words are grouped together to form an intonation phrase... Intonation phrases can coincide with breath groups..., but they do not have to. Often a breath group contains more than one intonation phrase. As with all other phonological units, it is assumed that speakers have a mental representation of intonation phrases, i.e. they know how to produce speech structured into intonation phrases and they rely on this knowledge when listening to the speech of others. Within an intonation phrase, there is typically one word that is most prominent... Some utterances might contain just one intonation phrase, others might contain several of them. Moreover, speakers can put utterances together to form larger stretches of speech or discourse... Intonational phrasing in English can have a meaning-distinguishing function. Consider utterances 11a and 11b: (11a) He washed and fed the dog. (11b) He washed | and fed the dog. If the intonation phrase He washed and fed the dog is produced as one intonation phrase, its meaning is that a person both washed and fed a dog. Conversely, if the same utterance is produced as a sequence of two intonation phrases with an intonation boundary after washed (indicated by the symbol |), the meaning of the utterance changes into someone who washed himself and fed a dog. (Ulrike Gut, Introduction to English Phonetics and Phonology. Peter Lang, 2009) Intonation Contours Intonation often does serve to convey information of a broadly meaningful nature . . .. For example, the falling pitch we hear at the end of a statement in English such as Fred parked the car signals that the utterance is complete. For this reason, falling intonation at the end of an utterance is called a terminal (intonation) contour. Conversely, a rising or level intonation, called a nonterminal (intonation) contour, often signals incompleteness. Nonterminal contours are often heard in the nonfinal forms found in lists and telephone numbers. (William OGrady et al., Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction, 4th ed. Bedford/St. Martins, 2001) Tonality (Chunking) The speaker does not necessarily have to follow the rule of an IP for each clause. There are many cases where different kinds of chunking are possible. For example, if a speaker wants to say We dont know who she is, it is possible to say the whole utterance as a single IP ( one intonation pattern): We dont know who she is. But it is also possible to divide the material up, in at least the following possible ways: We dont know | who she is. We | dont know who she is. We dont | know who she is. We | dont know | who she is. Thus the speaker may present the material as two, or three, pieces of information rather than a single piece. This is tonality (or chunking). (J. C. Wells, English Intonation: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 2006) The Position of Intonation Phrase Boundaries The position of intonation phrase boundaries shows a good amount of variability. These have been studied in English on the basis of positions of possible pauses within clauses (Selkirk 1984b, Taglicht 1998 and references there) and positions of obligatory pauses (Downing 1970). . . . The core result is that root clauses, and only these, are bounded by obligatory intonation phrase breaks. (Root clauses are clauses [CPs] not imbedded inside of a higher clause that has a subject and a predicate.) (Hubert Truckenbrodt, The Syntax-Phonology Interface. The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology, ed. by Paul de Lacy. Cambridge University Press, 2007)