Word Formation & Affixation
Word Formation and Affixation
One of the problems facing any language learner is the vast number of words to learn.
As we learn, we notice various patterns in words. For example, we learn the word ‘able’, and then, sometime later, meet the word ‘ability’. We read the word ‘possible’ and then also come across ‘possibility’.
When we know that ‘able’ and ‘possible’ are adjectives, and ‘ability’ and ‘possibility’ are nouns, we can form the hypothesis that some adjectives ending in ‘-ble’ change ‘-ble’ to ‘-bility’ to form nouns.
When we come across ‘probability’, we can guess that the adjective ends in ‘-ble’ – ‘probable’.
Noticing patterns is a good way to learn a language.
How does this help us, or our students?
1. When we know the ‘rules’ of word formation, we can increase our receptive vocabulary.
If we read or listen to a word we do not know, but we recognize the ending, we can make an educated guess about what the word means.
In this sentence:
Carbon has the capability to form long chains of its own atoms.
Capability might be a new word for us, but we can guess it is the noun from ‘capable’.
2. We can increase our productive vocabulary..
If we have noticed that ‘-ness’ often occurs at the end of nouns, such as happiness, sadness or usefulness, we can make nouns of our own, for example, ‘carelessness’ (from the adjective ‘careless’).
When we know that ‘un-‘ is often used to show the negative of an adjective, we can make the adjective ‘unreliable’ from the positive adjective ‘reliable’
3. By knowing about these endings (called suffixes) and beginnings (called prefixes) we can learn vocabulary more quickly.
4. When we want to refer to both prefixes and suffixes together, we use the word ‘affixes’.
Let’s take a word like ‘develop’.
It takes time and effort to remember the word and its meaning, how to say it and when to use it. IBut if we learn not only ‘develop’ but also all the words we can make from this ‘root’ or ‘base’, it takes less time and effort than if we learn each word separately.
From ‘develop’ we can get:
Development (the abstract noun)
Developer (the person who develops)
Developed (the adjective showing something is already developed)
Developable (the adjective showing that something could be developed)
Undeveloped (negative adjective)
Underdeveloped
Overdeveloped
.....
All these words, formed from the root ‘develop’, are derivatives. They form a Word Family.
Tips on Word Formation
It is useful to identify the root of any new word we learn, because it can help us form other members of the Word Family..
‘Advise’ (verb) is the root of all these derivatives.
advisable (adjective)
inadvisable (-ve adjective)
advisability (adverb)
inadvisability (-ve adverb)
advisor (person who advises)
advice (noun)
Note that adverbs are built on the adjective rather than directly on the root:
(noun) (adjective) (adverb)
science scientific scientifically
history historic historically
geography geographic geographically
mathematics mathematical mathematically
Notice how frequently ‘-ic’ was used to form the adjective, and ‘-ically’ to form the adverb. Mathematical is used here because we cannot add another ‘-ic’ to Mathematics.
In the text a number of words were in bold – they are all derivatives.
When we group the derivatives under the Part of Speech they belong to, we see some very common affixes:
Recording Vocabulary
Word Families can be recorded in the form of Mind Maps, which is known to help learners remember more vocabulary.
In the table below are the most common affixes, together with some more uncommon ones which are used for science subjects, for example:
exo- exothermic, exocrine, exodermis, exoskeletal, exosphere, …
endo - endothelial, endoblast, endothermic, endometrium, …
hypo- hypothermia, hypothesis, hypodermis, hypoallergenic
hyper- hyperacidity, hyperbola, hyperconcentration, hyperglycemia, ..
Typical Affixes for Word Formation
Stress in derivatives
The stress in a derivative might not be the same as in the root or in other derivatives:
photograph photography photographer photographic
Ooo oOoo oOoo ooOo
It is always best to check a dictionary to see where the main stress is.
Remember that affixes are never stressed in English.
Special Cases
Adjectives derived from verbs
We can often make adjectives from verbs by adding ‘-ing’ or ‘-ed’ to the verb:
Verb -ing adjective -ed adjective
interest interesting interested
bore boring bored
tire tiring tired
Look at the sentence:
The lesson was very interesting.
‘interesting’ describes the lesson – the lesson is ‘creating’ the interest – an active adjective.
Compare this to:
I was interested in the lesson.
I am not creating the interest. I am being ‘passively’ affected by the lesson – a passive adjective.
Examples from the text are:
high-pitched stressed unstressed
Some other – ‘ing’ adjectives can be derived from nouns, for example enterprising, and neighbouring.
Nouns derived from verbs
In the text we had the words ‘spelling’ and ‘recording’. These are nouns from the verbs ‘spell’ and ‘record’. To name an activity, we often make nouns from verbs. We call these Gerunds.
Other examples of Gerunds are:
listening, working, studying and learning
Comparatives and Superlatives
In the text we read:
Stressed syllables are slightly louder, longer and more high-pitched than unstressed syllables.
The words ‘louder’ and ‘longer’ are formed from the adjective ‘loud’ and are used to compare the properties of one noun to other nouns.
Notice how we add ‘-er’ to the adjective to show ‘more’ – the comparative.
High-pitched is a long word, so we do not add ‘-er’. Generally, words with 3 or more syllables take ‘more’ instead of ‘-er’.
Look at this sentence from the text:
In a similar way, the suffixes which we use to make the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives are unstressed, for example new, newer (Oo), newest (Oo).
Here ‘newer’ is the comparative and ‘newest’ is the superlative. The superlative is used when we want to say that something has a property which is the greatest possible:
the highest mountain the hardest test the most expensive car
Note that:
1. We add ‘-est’ to short words and ‘the most’ to longer words.
2. We use ‘the’ because the superlative describes a unique property – there is nothing greater than it.
The comparative and superlative are used for adverbs as well as adjectives:
Adjective Comparative Superlative
hard harder the hardest
tragic more tragic the most tragic
interesting more interesting the most interesting
little less the least
few fewer the fewest
good better the best
bad worse the worst
Adverb Comparative Superlative
well better the best (adv)
badly worse the worst (adv)
Spelling Tips
If the adjective has a consonant – vowel – consonant pattern, double the consonant and add –er/-est:
wet wetter wettest
big bigger biggest
If it ends in a ‘y’, change the ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add –er/est:
happy happier happiest
Download Word Formation & Affixation