Criteria of semantic derivation.

1) The first criterion makes use of non-correspondence between the lexical meaning of the root morpheme and the part of-speech meaning of the stem of one of the words making up the conversion pair The verbs pen, father denote a process, therefore the part-of-speech meaning of their stems does not correspond to the lexical meaning of the roots which is of a substantival character. This distinction accounts for the complex character of the semantic structure of verbs of this type.

2) The second criterion involves a comparison of a conversion pair with analogous word-pairs making use of the synonymic sets, of which the words in question are members For instance, in comparing conversion pairs like chat, v — chat, «; show, v — show, n; work, v — work, n, etc. with analogous synonymic word-pairs like converse — conversation; exhibit— exhibition; occupy— occupation; employ— employment, etc,

3) The criterion based on derivational relations within the word-cluster of which the converted words in question are members. It will be recalled that the stems of words making up a word-cluster enter into derivational relations of different degrees. If the center of the cluster is a verb, all derived words of the first degree of derivation have suffixes generally added to a verb-base. The center of a cluster being a noun, all the first-degree derivatives have suffixes generally added to a nounbase.

Proceeding from this regularity it is logical to conclude that if the first degree derivatives have suffixes added to a nounbase, the center of the cluster is a noun, and if they have suffixes added to a verb-base, it is -a verb. It is this regularity that the criterion of semantic derivation under discussion is based on. In the word-cluster hand, n — hand, v — handful — handy — handed the derived words have suffixes added to the noun-base which makes it possible to conclude that the structural and semantic center of the whole cluster is the noun hand. Consequently, we can assume that the verbhand is semantically derived from the noun hand. Likewise, considering the derivatives within the word-cluster float, n — float, v — floatable — floater — floatation — floating we see that the center is the verb to float and conclude that the noun float is the derived member in the conversion pair float, n — float,

4) Of very wide application is the criterion of semantic derivation based on semantic relations within conversion pairs. If these relations are typical of denominal verbs the derived member is the verb. But if they are typical of deverbal nouns the derived member is the noun. E.g. a screw (stem) - to screw (derived).

5) The fifth criterion of semantic derivation for conversion pairs is based on the frequency of occurrence in various utterances of either of the two member-words related through conversion. A lower frequency value testifies to the derived character of the word in question. The information about the frequency value of words though on a limited scale can be found in the available dictionaries of word-frequency.E.g. to answer (V- 63%) - answer (N- 35%) to help (V - 61 %) - help (N - 1 %) to joke (V - 8%) -joke (N - 82%)