English Verbification in a Cross-Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This paper examines the nature of English verbification, or conversion to verb, by means of a partly comparative corpus-based analysis across 4 distinct types of written discourse. The main features investigated are the frequency of verbification, its morphological and semantic properties, and the possible influence of discourse type on these parameters. In this way, the thesis aims to put to test selected academic assumptions about conversion and the hypothesis that conversion, and hence verbification as well, may be controlled by discourse-specific factors.