Zero affixation is different from functional shift, as Natalie's example suggests. The plural of "deer" is "deer." That would be considered zero affixation, where some, usually ill-defned, subset of a word class does not take the expected suffix. Usually zero suffixation is inflectional, as with this plural example. Functional shift is a derivational process. In a language like English where there is so much inflectional morphology and so little of it regular, there is no expected suffix for changing a word from a noun to a verb, or from any category to any other category, and so the terms "functional shift," "zero derivation," and "conversion" are ways of labeling changes in word class that have no effect on stem form.
Herb
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From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Natalie Gerber [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: May 29, 2008 2:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Morphology
Just to second Kathleen's note. What I've read on morphology does consider functional shift to be a morphological change and records this by calling such changes as zero affix, which accounts for the fact that, e.g., in irregular noun plurals there is no -s, or derivational affix attached.
John, if it's of interest, I can send a short lesson on morphology created by a Ph.D. in linguistics that will help address this.
Natalie Gerber
SUNY Fredonia
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From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Kathleen M. Ward
Sent: Thu 5/29/2008 11:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Morphology
My speciality is certainly not morphology, but all the books I've read call this kind of "derivation without change in form" a morphological change that is variously called "conversion," "functional shift," or "zero-morph derivation.
Kathleen M. Ward
UC Davis
On May 29, 2008, at 7:34 AM, John Crow wrote:
If a word changes function but does not change form, is that considered to be a morphological change? For example, rich, normally considered to be an adjective, can easily function as a noun (the rich). If it becomes an adverb (richly), morphology is obviously involved here. What about the adjective-to-noun shift?
Thanks,
John
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