英語の語形成論における「品詞転換」「派生」「屈折」の関係について

The Kenkyusha Dictionary of English Philology asserts that 'Conversion' is quite different from 'Derivation' in spite of their similarity (henceforth 'non-derivation theory'). On the other hand, both Sanseido's Dictionary of English Grammar and Baihukan' Dictionary of English Grammar state that 'Conversion' can be considered 'Derivation by zero-morpheme' (henceforth 'zero-derivation theory').
This paper aims at examining these two contradictory theories and arriving at an appropriate conclusion.
In order to clarify the nature of 'Derivation', it will be profitable to compare it with 'Inflection' . In this article, therefore, the writer first inquires into the relation between 'Derivation' and ' Inflection' and then, on the basis of this inquiry, discusses the relation between 'Conversion' and 'Derivation'. The writer bases his view on Dr. Hattori's 'semantic theory', and in reference to Chafe's notions of 'directionality', 'derivational unit' and 'inflectional unit'-, introduces the notion of 'concomitant features'(i.e. a lexico-semantic feature plus a grammatical feature).
The conclusion of this paper is as follows: 'zero-derivation theory' is to be preferred, on condition that 'zero-derivation' be considered to include the case in which no shifting of word-class takes place in spite of the addition of 'concomitant features' (e.g.grow(vi)vs. grow(vt)).