A NOTE ON ABELIAN CONVERSION OF CONSTRAINTS

We show that for a system containing a set of general second class con straints which are linear in the phase space variables, the Abelian co nversion can be obtained in a closed form and that the first class con straints generate a generalized shift symmetry. We study in detail the example of a general first order Lagrangian and show how the shift sy mmetry noted in the context of BV quantization arises.