9 Types of Functional Variation

9 Types of Functional Variation 9 Types of Functional Variation 9 Types of Functional Variation By Mark Nichol Usually, we easily identify a word’s part of speech, but a given word’s grammatical category can shift, or one form of the word can differ in meaning from another, in a process called functional variation. For example, note the change in meaning of fly in the following sentences: â€Å"He caught a fly† (noun), â€Å"He caught a fly ball† (adjective), â€Å"He will fly there tonight† (verb), and â€Å"He caught the ball on the fly† (part of an adverbial phrase). These and other types of functional variation are described below: 1. Nouns as Adjectives Nouns are frequently employed to modify other nouns (for example, in â€Å"light fixture,† â€Å"grape jam,† and â€Å"railroad track†). However, problems include ambiguous usage, such as in the phrase â€Å"box set,† which can mean â€Å"a set in a box† (and is therefore better rendered â€Å"boxed set†) or â€Å"a set of boxes,† and adjective stacking, or employing an excessive series of nouns as adjectives. 2. Adjectives as Nouns The reverse can take place, as when a phrase such as â€Å"a hypothetical situation† is truncated to the adjective turned noun hypothetical or when a person or a group is identified, for example, as in â€Å"the homeless.† 3. Nouns as Verbs This type of transformation is ubiquitous in the business world and in other jargon-friendly environments, where terms for things such as impact, mainstream, and text become action words. 4. Verbs as Nouns Present participles such as laughing are employed as nouns: In â€Å"Who was laughing?† laughing is a verb; however, it’s a noun in â€Å"Did you hear that laughing?† (although it would be better to use the noun laughter). 5. Verbs as Adjectives Participles also serve as adjectives. To use the previous example, laughing can also modify a noun, as in â€Å"See that laughing girl?† (although one could also write, â€Å"See that girl laughing?†). 6. Adjectives as Verbs Such shifts are so rare that the only ones that occur to me are terms I occasionally use in these posts: lowercase and uppercase, as in â€Å"Lowercase job titles after a name,† in which lowercase refers to an action involving job titles, rather than describing a type of treatment of a job title. 7. Prepositions as Adverbs When one refers, for example, to â€Å"calling up reserves† or â€Å"casting off from the dock,† one is using idiomatic phrasal verbs to describe how calling or casting occurs, though some phrasal verbs are merely figurative; â€Å"calling up,† for example, involves no upward movement, while â€Å"casting off† literally results in one no longer being on the dock. 8. Conjunctions as Prepositions In rare cases, a conjunction can serve as a preposition, as when but, which usually functions as a conjunction, as in â€Å"I was there, but I didn’t see you,† is employed as a synonym for except, as in â€Å"Everyone but you has agreed.† 9. Various Parts of Speech as Interjections Most parts of speech can serve as an interruptive or exclamatory term, including nouns (â€Å"Dude!†), pronouns (â€Å"Me!), verbs (â€Å"See?†), adjectives (â€Å"Wonderful!†), and adverbs (â€Å"Slowly!†). Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Fly, Flew, (has) FlownFlied?15 Great Word Games10 Tips for Clean, Clear Writing