Exercises on conversion
Exercise 2. Translate the sentences. Analyze semantic relations between the converted verbs in bold type and the nouns. Define which of the two words within a conversion pair is the derived member?
1. Isabel wirelessed him from the ship. (W. S. Maugham) 2. At three o'clock that afternoon Reginald Corby was telephoning his home. (J. Trevor) 3. Rose Mary goes to telephone and begins dialling. (J. B. Priestley) 4. Mother stopped ladling the broth. (A. Cronin) 5. It was all for the best, that boy and these girls set on the right path, flanneled and stockinged for Jesus and the General Certificate of Education, stripped for ball games in the bitter cold. (P. Mortimer) 6. Then they go to Bratt's half hoping to find friends, but, more often than not, taking a melancholy satisfaction in finding the club deserted or peopled by strangers. (E, Waugh) 7. Jimmie is singing as he milks the goat, I think a Dutch song. (M. Spark) 8. She would have said more, had not the door opened and Phyllis sailed in to take away the tea. (E. Bowen) 9. It's hardly becoming in a gentleman approaching middle age who's chained to an invalid bed. (W. S. Maugham) 10. He fiddled with the tape machine, pressed the lever. (M. Spark) 11. Laurence piloted her out to the taxi, for she had been wobbly even when they arrived. (M. Spark) 12. His client Mr Richmond had to be punctual, indeed his appointment was timed for 10 o'ctock — although the trial was not due to begin until 10.30 (H. Cecil) 13. Molly was nine, the eldest, and when she remembered this superiority, she mothered the party. (J. Gary) 14. Carolina had come round her head still bandaged, her leg now caged in its plaster and slung up on its scaffold. {M. Spark} 15. Her yellow face was deeply lined, but her hair which flew in whisps about her face, was a greenish yellow. (J. Gary) 16. He tried to diet me once. In fact, he did put me off my palm oil chop. (/. Gary) 17. My wife was dogged by ill health for twelve years. (M. Spark) 18. What's the good in ferreting out the truth all the time? (P. Mortimer) 19. He raised his hands palms together and snaked them through imaginarry valleys. (P. Mortimer) 20. Bluebell camelled her back, stalked on my matress, curled up, and began to purr. (M. Spark) 21. Miguel fishes in the stream all morning. (M. Spark) 22. She smiled at him over her drink, for their immediate haste was over and Laurence had fished out the bottle which she had packed in his suitcase very carefully in its proper corner. (M. Spark) 23. These blackmailers beetle round in a curious way, you know. (M. Spark) 24. Other items which he aired in the same breath, such as "There's been a cobweb on the third landing for two weeks, four days and fifteen hours, not including the time for the making..." (-M. Spark) 25. Bowen heard him land — it was a long drop — and run away round the side of the house. (A". Amis) 26. "And why not, officer?" thundered Mr Tewkesbury. {H. Cecil) 27. The sky had clouded and in spite of Laurence's protests the barking of distant thunder was undeniable. (M. Spark) 28. He said this rather good-humouredly over his shoulder as he waved and hissed for the waiter. {K. Amis) 29. It made her purr and rise on her hind legs to paw my shoulder as I crouched on the patio whistling to her in the early afternoons. (M. Spark) 30. When's she going to face facts? (P. Mortimer) 31. Not that I actually expected to find anything — I was just nosing round so to speak. (A. Christie) 32. He consulted a doctor who told him he was heading for a breakdown and advised a nursing home. (J. Gary) 33. "Forgive my saying so, old boy," said-Brent, "but how can you stomach old Tewkesbury as a client?" {H. Cecil} 34. He had run through a good deal of money as a subaltern, backing horses; but many subalterns have done that. (J. Gary) 35. She was tremendously anxious not to disturb Jake, but would tiptoe past his study door leaving such a smell of gardenia behind her that in a few moments he would come out, sniffing, and join us in the kitchen or the sitting-room cluttered with patterns and pins, for we took to dress-making .at that time. (P. Mortimer) 36. Placed to the left of these, a corner bookcase was devoted to the Marian section, all heavily thumbed and annotated. (M. Spark} 37. The curious visiting Egyptian had glanced round at his neighbours and grinned, hunching his shoulders. (K. Amis) 38. He handed Ernest the slip he had signed and folded neatly and properly. {M. Spark} 39. Then Bob joined them in a third pint and shouldering their guns, they disappeared into the woods directly back of the pullet runs. (B. MacDonald) 40. We had nosed our way into the foothills of the Olympics... (B. MacDonald) 41. The silence lengthened and he could feel Bachixa starting to eye him. (K.Amis} 42. She fingered a lace scarf. (W. S. Maugham} 43. They have taken over our living-room and requisitioned all the best chairs. (E. Gurney} 44. His jaw dropped, but on he went, pumping me for another half hour, (A. Sillitoe) 45. I liked to picture. the effect if I arrived with Jimmie in my wake. (M. Spark) 46. ... he had stationed himself in the Saloon Bar for the rest of the evening to drink jar after jar of beer... (A. Sillitoe} 47. ...the bank that a week ago echoed my footsteps like a police court begged to advance my money, safeguard my valuables, and execute my will ... (R. Gordon) 48. The casualty room at St Swithin's was not likely to fire in any young man the inspiration to be a second Louis Pasteur or Astley Cooper. (R. Gordon) 49. It was important to decide on entering the room, which of the committee were doctors and which were lay governors, in order to tune the pitch of each reply correctly... (R. Gordon) 50. Tuberculosis offered work in pleasant country surroundings with plenty of fresh butter and eggs, but the drowsy routine of a sanatorium often drugs the doctors as well as the patients. (R. Gordon} 51. He'd happened to pal up with a French bloke who'd been in the orthopaedic wards... (R. Gordon}
Exercise 3. Translate the sentences. Analyze semantic relations between the converted nouns in bold type and the verbs. Define which of the two words within a conversion pair is the derived member?
1. This was Helena's last try. (M. Spark) 2. Jimmie Wal Erford got off with a few cuts and bruises. (M. Spark) 3. I don'1 keep up t-his house to be a hostel of bores to come and gossip in. (E. Waugh} 4. I am afraid I can't ask you in for a drink. {E. Waugh} 5. He did not at all like the look or feel of the bed; the springs were broken in the centre and it creaked ominously when he lay down to try it. (E. Waugh) 6. "What do you mean?" he said with a presentable show of injured innocence. (H. Cecil} 7. The line of least resistance, backed up by cloudy visions of gain, had brought him here, rather against both his better judgement and his conscience. (K. Amis) 8. Bowen's first kill was a big insect with an important, matriarchal appearance. (K. Amis) 9. That single name gave me a stab of grief, sickening as a present grief—whereas the name of Roy Calvert himself I had heard without emotion. (C. P. Snow} 10. After he retired, it seemed for a time that the old. sting had left him. (C. P. Snow) 11. It was a dark night, not cold, with low cloud cover. (C. P. Snow} 12. He was not allowed a say for one single minute. (E. Bowen} 13. So he asked us to give her a taste of that for a year. (f. Bowen} 14. But I'm not in the least prepared to give tacit support to degrading superstitions. (C. P. Snow} 15. It would be a run of a. dozen miles or so inland, he had worked out. (K- Amis) 16. I thought I was just having a run of bad luck or that I didn't play as well as he did. (W. S. Maugham) 17. Now the children and I were just going up to the house for a bite, and we want you to come along with us. (B. Mac-Donald) 18. He hadn't said anything to me because he didn't want to disappoint me if the ranch had proved a poor buy. (B. MacDonald} 19. "A lot happened to me then, you know." "Such as?" "Oh, just the ordinary casual run of events." (W.S. Maugham} 20. The creature asked Jonah who he was and how he was enjoying his swim. (E. Gurney} 21. ... I realized it might be possible to run for money, trot for wages on piece work at a bob a puff rising bit by bit to a guinea a gasp and retiring through old age at thirty-two. (A. Sillitoe) 22. For when my eyes recognize that I'm getting near the end of the course — by seeing a stile or cottage corner — I put on a spurt ... (A. Sillitoe) 23. A middle-aged man wearing a dirty raincoat, who badly needed a shave and looked as though he hadn't washed for a month, came out of a public lavatory with a cloth bag of tools folded beneath his arm. (A. Sillitoe} 24. ...I'm doing it in a place just where the drive turns in to the sportsfield — where they can see what I'm doing... (A. Sillitoe} 25. The appointment would be made after we had finished three months' work in casualty — and only one of us could be chosen. The reject would be turned out in his medical infancy to wail on some other hospital's doorstep. (R.Gprdon) 26. The only faintly shady part of the practice was our electrocardiograph, an instrument for taking electrical records of the heart, which represented the conflict between Razzy the doctor and Razzy the financier; he knew that as a diagnostic aid it was almost useless, but he hated not seeing a return on his capital. (R. Gordon) 27. With the weather thickening and the light fading early the crowd had thinned slightly either end of the ground. The better part of, it was now stuffed in the main stand and in the covered stand opposite. 28. She was wearing a tweed coat trimmed with fur, smart travelling clothes, foreign in make and cut.(A. Christie) 29...When it got dark I could thumb a lorry lift and get a free ride north with somebody who might not give me away. (A. Sillitoe) 30. He gave him twenty-five grains of quinine and lit a fire so close to his hammock that by morning it was singed and blacked with smoke. (E Waugh) 31. On first sight it looked distressingly forlorn, huddled there in the laps of the great Olympics, the buildings greyed with weather, the orchard overgrown with second-growth firs, the fences collapsing, the windows gaping. (B. MacDonald) 32. Caroline put the palms of her hands out to the sun to get them browned. (M.Spark). 33. His face also was long and hollow,dried up by sun and yellowed by fever.(J. Gary) 34. Caroline freed herself and gripped the side of the boat. (M. Spark) 35. I tried out "Dinner is served" on them in a vain attempt to better myself, but the effect was rather spoiled by the door-knob coming off in my hand as I said it. (M. Dickens) 36. As I eased in beside Small Anne and laid my cheek on one of Mrs Kettle's best pillow slips, I knew I would awaken with a basket of flowers imprinted on my right cheek. (B. MacDonald)