Ten parts of a word

A reader asks about the terms prefix, root, and suffix, and wonders how to distinguish them in a word.

At the most basic level, words are made up of units of meaning called morphemes. A morpheme may be a recognizable word like tree, run, or button that cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful parts.

A morpheme can represent meaning without being a word. For example, the prefix un- expresses the idea of negation. The suffix -ness, used to turn adjectives into abstract nouns, is a morpheme. The root struct, seen in structure and construct, is a morpheme that embodies the meaning of “to build,” but it cannot stand alone as an English word.

A root is a word’s basic part and carries its fundamental meaning. In the word sadness, for example, the root is sad. Sometimes two roots combine to make one word, as in telephone, a combination of the morpheme tele, which relates to distance, and the morpheme phone, which relates to sound.

Prefixes and suffixes belong to a set of morphemes called affixes. An affix is an element added to the base form or stem of a word to modify its meaning.

Standard English makes use of two types of affix: prefixes and suffixes. A prefix is added at the beginning of a word. For example, the prefix re- is added to a root or a word to denote the idea of doing it again: return, renew, reconstruct.

A suffix is added at the end of a word.

Suffixes are of two kinds, derivational and inflectional. A derivational suffix changes the underlying meaning of the word; an inflectional suffix changes the tense of a verb or the number of a noun, or performs some other grammatical purpose.

Some common derivational suffixes are, -er, -al, -ful, and -ize. The suffix -er added to a verb creates a person or object that performs the action of the verb: teach/teacher, walk/walker, kill/killer, compute/computer; -al and -ful change nouns into adjectives: accident/accidental, forget/forgetful; -ize changes a noun into a verb: terror/terrorize.

Common inflectional suffixes are endings such as, –ed, -ly, -‘s, -s, -er, -ed, -es, -est, and -ing.

Derivational endings are added to a root. For example, the word reconstruction is made up of the root struct, two prefixes, re- and con-, and a suffix, tion. (Because struct ends in t and tion begins with t, one of the ts had to go.)

Inflectional endings are added to a stem, which is the entire word that the ending is being added to. In the words reconstructed and reconstructing, for example, the stem is reconstruct-.

Most
of the English lexicon is constituted by word which have several
morphemes. (75 % engl. Words – polymorphemic words).

In
ME most English vocabulary arises grows by making new lexemes out of
old one, by adding an affixation to previously existing forms
altering their words class and meaning by combining the existing
words (basis) to produce compounds: derivatives, derived words
(friendly
– unfriendly, teapot, bag bone).

The
contribution of word formation to the grows and development of
English lexicons is second to none, although a great deal belong to
borrowing and semantic derivation.

1. A
   complex word structure – the result of different word-formation
   process (illegal, discouraging, uninteresting)

2. A
   complex word structure may be connected with borrowing and further
   identification of certain morpheme in the system of language
   recipient.

Moreover
similar international structure may be the result of different word
formation process. E.g. discouraging
– discourage + ing; uninteresting – un + interesting
– morphologically(structurally) they are the same.

The
morphemic analyses and derived analyses they are differ in the aims
and basic elements.

To
eye – monomorphic (root word) It’s a derived word.A
morpheme
– the smallest meaningful language unit. Morphemes
may be classified:

1. from
   the semantic point of view.
   Semantically morphemes fall into two classes:

   • root-morphemes
     — is the lexical nucleus of a wщrd, it has an individual lexical
     meaning shared by no other morpheme of the language. The
     root-morpheme is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of words
     making up a word-cluster, for example the morpheme teach-in
     to teach,
     teacher, teaching, theor- in
     theory,
     theorist, theoretical, etc.

non-root
or affixational
morphemes
include inflectional morphemes or inflections and affixational
morphemes or affixes. Roots and affixes make two distinct classes of
morphemes due to the different roles they play in word-structure.

Roots
and affixational morphemes are generally easily distinguished and the
difference between them is clearly felt as, e.g., in the words
helpless,
handy, blackness, Londoner, refill, etc.:
the root-morphemes help-,
hand-, black-, London-, -fill are
understood as the lexical centres of the words, as the basic
constituent part of a word without which the word is inconceivable.

Affixes
are classified into prefixes
and suffixes:
a prefix precedes the root-morpheme, a suffix follows it.
Affixes besides the meaning proper to root-morphemes possess the
part-of-speech meaning and a generalised lexical meaning.

1. Structurally morphemes fall into three types:

   • A
     free
     morpheme
     is defined as one that coincides with the stem or a word-form. A
     great many root-morphemes are free morphemes, for example, the
     root-morpheme friend
     —
     of the noun friendship
     is
     naturally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with
     one of the forms of the noun friend.

   • A
     bound
     morpheme
     occurs only as a constituent part of a word. Affixes are,
     naturally, bound morphemes, for they always make part of a word,
     e.g. the suffixes -ness,
     -ship, -ise (-ize), etc.,
     the prefixes un-,dis-,
     de-, etc.
     (e.g. readiness, comradeship, to activise; unnatural, to displease,
     to decipher).

Many
root-morphemes also belong to the class of bound morphemes which
always occur in morphemic sequences, i.e. in combinations with ‘
roots or affixes. All unique roots and pseudo-roots are-bound
morphemes. Such are the root-morphemes theor-
in
theory,
theoretical, etc.,
barbar-in
barbarism,
barbarian, etc.,
-ceive
in
conceive, perceive,
etc.

• Semi-bound
  (semi-free)
  morpheme
  are morphemes that can function in a morphemic sequence both as an
  affix and as a free morpheme. For example, the morpheme well
  and
  half
  on
  the one hand occur as free morphemes that coincide with the stem and
  the word-form in utterances like sleep
  well, half an hour,” on
  the other hand they occur as bound morphemes in words like
  well-known,
  half-eaten, half-done.Speaking
  of word-structure on the morphemic level two groups of morphemes
  should be specially mentioned.

To
the
first
group
belong morphemes of Greek and Latin origin often called combining
forms,
e.g. telephone,
telegraph, phonoscope, microscope, etc.
The morphemes tele-,
graph-, scope-, micro-, phone- are
characterised by a definite lexical meaning and peculiar stylistic
reference: tele-
means
‘far’, graph-
means
‘writing’, scope
— ’seeing’, micro-
implies
smallness, phone-
means
’sound.’ Comparing words with tele-
as
their first constituent, such as telegraph,
telephone, telegram one
may conclude that tele-
is
a prefix and graph-,
phone-, gram-are
root-morphemes. On the other hand, words like phonograph,
seismograph, autograph may
create the impression that the second morpheme graph
is
a suffix and the first — a root-morpheme. These morphemes are all
bound root-morphemes of a special kind and such words belong to words
made up of bound roots. The fact that these morphemes do not possess
the part-of-speech meaning typical of affixational morphemes
evidences their status as roots.

The
second
group
embraces
morphemes occupying a kind of intermediate
position, morphemes that are changing their class membership.

According
to the number of morphemes words are classified into monomorphic
and
polymorphic.

Monomorphiс
or root-words consist of only one root-morpheme, e.g. small,
dog, make, give, etc.

Pоlуmоrphiс
words according to the number of root-morphemes are classified into
two subgroups:

• polyradical
  words, i.e. words which consist of two or more roots. Polyradical
  words fall into two types:

1)
polyradical
words
which consist of two or more roots with no affixational morphemes,
e.g. book-stand,
eye-ball, lamp-shade, etc.
and

2)
words which contain
at least two
roots
and one
or more
affixational
morphemes,
e.g. safety-pin,
wedding-pie, class-consciousness, light-mindedness, pen-holder, etc.

• Monoradical
  words fall into two subtypes:

radical-suffixal
words, i.e. words that consist of one root-morpheme and one or more
suffixal morphemes, e.g. acceptable,
acceptability, blackish, etc.;

2)radical-prefixal
words, i.e. words that consist of one root-morpheme and a prefixal
morpheme, e.g. outdo,
rearrange, unbutton, etc.
and 3) prefixo-radical-suffixal,
i.e. words which consist of one root, a prefixal and suffixal
morphemes, e.g. disagreeable,
misinterpretation, etc.

Three
types of morphemic segmentability of words are distinguished:
complete,
conditional
and
defective.

Complete
segmentability is characteristic of a great many words the morphemic
structure of which is transparent enough, as their individual
morphemes clearly stand out within the word lending themselves easily
to isolation.

Conditional
morphemic segmentability characterises words whose segmentation into
the constituent morphemes is doubtful for semantic reasons. The
morphemes making up words of conditional segmentability thus differ
from morphemes making up words of complete segmentability in that the
former do not rise to the full status of morphemes for semantic
reasons and that is why a special term is applied to them in
linguistic literature: such morphemes are called pseudo-morphemes
or quasi-morphemes.

Defective
morphemic segmentability is the property of words whose component
morphemes seldom or never recur in other words. One
of
the component morphemes is a unique morpheme in the sense that it
does not, as a rule, recur in a different linguistic environment. A
unique morpheme is isolated and understood as meaningful because the
constituent morphemes display a more or less clear denotational
meaning. The morphemic analysis of words like cranberry,
gooseberry, strawberry shows
that they also possess defective morphemic segmentability: the
morphemes cran-,
goose-, straw- are
unique morphemes.

Morphemic
analyses – the
aim is to state the number and type of morphemes the word possess.

The
procedure generally employed for the purposes of segmenting words
into the constituent morphemes is the method of Immediate
and Ultimate
Constituents.
This method is based on a binary principle, i.e. each stage of the
procedure involves two components the word immediately breaks into.
At each stage these two components are referred to as the Immediate
Constituents (ICs). Each IC at the next stage of analysis is in turn
broken into two smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is
completed when we arrive at constituents incapable of further
division, i.e. morphemes. In terms of the method employed these are
referred to as the Ultimate Constituents (UCs). For example the noun
friendliness
is
first segmented into the IC friendly
recurring
in the adjectives friendly-looking
and
friendly
and
the -ness
found
in a countless number of nouns, such as happiness,
darkness, unselfishness, etc.
The IC -ness
is
at the same time a UC of the noun, as it cannot be broken into any
smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning. The IC
friendly
is
next broken into the ICs friend-and
-ly
recurring
in friendship,
unfriendly, etc.
on the one hand, and wifely,
brotherly, etc.,
on the other. Needless to say that the ICs friend-and
-ly
are
both UCs of the word under analysis.

The
morphemic analysis according to the IC and UC may be carried out on
the basis of two principles: the so-called root
principle
and
the
affix principle.
According to the affix
principle
the segmentation of the word into its constituent morphemes is based
on the identification of an affixational morpheme within a set of
words; for example, the identification of the suffixational morpheme
-less
leads
to the segmentation of words like useless,
hopeless, merciless, etc.,
into the suffixational morpheme -less and the root-morphemes within a
word-cluster; the identification of the root-morpheme agree- in the
words agreeable,
agreement, disagree makes
it possible to split these words into the root -agree-
and
the affixational morphemes -able,
-ment, dis-. As
a rule, the application of one of these

11.
Derivational analyses.

The
nature, type and arrangement of the ICs of the word is known as its
derivative
structure.
According to the derivative structure all words fall into two big
classes: simple,
non-derived words and complexes
or derivatives.
Simplexes
are words which derivationally cannot’ be segmented into ICs.
Derivatives
are words which depend on some other simpler lexical items that
motivate them structurally and semantically, i.e. the meaning and the
structure of the derivative is understood through the comparison with
the meaning and the structure of the source word.

The
basic elementary units of the derivative structure of words are:
derivational
bases,
derivational
affixes
and
derivational
patterns.
The relations between words with a common root but of different
derivative structure are known as derivative
relations.
The derivative and derivative relations make the subject of study at
the
derivational
level
of analysis;
it aims at establishing correlations between different types of
words, the structural and semantic patterns words are built on, the
study also enables one to understand how new words appear in the
language.

Derivational
base: is
defined as the constituent to which a rule of word-formation is
applied. Structurally derivational bases fall into three classes: 1)
bases
that coincide
with
morphological
stems
of different degrees of complexity, e.g. dutiful,
dutifully;
day-dream,
to day-dream, daydreamer.

Derivationally
the stems may be:

1. simple,
   which consist of only one, semantically non motivated constituent
   (pocket,
   motion, retain, horrible).

b) derived
stems are semantically and structurally motivated, and are the
results of the application of word-formation rules (girl
– girlish, to weekend, to daydream)

c) compound
stems are always binary and semantically motivated (match-box,
letter-writer)

2)
bases
that coincide with
word-forms;
e.g. paper-bound,
unsmiling,
unknown.
This class of bases is confined to verbal word-forms
— the
present and the past participles.

3)
bases
that coincide with
word-grоups
of different degrees of stability, e ,g. second-rateness,
flat-waisted,
etc. This class is made of word-groups. Bases of this kind are most
active with derivational affixes in the class of adjectives and
nouns, e.g. blue-eyed,
long-fingered, old-fashioned, do-gooder, etc.

Derivational
affixes: Derivational
affixes are ICs of numerous derivatives in all parts of speech.
Derivational affixes possess two basic functions: 1)
that
of stem-building
and 2)
that
of word-building.
In most cases derivational affixes perform both
functions
simultaneously. It is true that the part-of-speech meaning is proper
in different degrees to the derivational suffixes and prefixes. It
stands out clearly in derivational suffixes but it is less evident in
prefixes; some prefixes lack it altogether. Prefixes like en-,
un-, de-,
out-,
be-,
unmistakably possess the part-of-speech meaning and function as verb
classifiers. The prefix over-evidently
lacks the part-of-speech meaning and is freely used both for verbs
and adjectives, the same may be said about non-,
pre-, post-.

Derivational
patterns: A
derivational
pattern
is a regular
meaningful arrangement, a structure that imposes rigid rules on the
order and the nature of the derivational bases and affixes that may
be brought together.

There
are two types of DPs — structural that specify base classes and
individual affixes, and structural-semantic that specify semantic
peculiarities of bases and the individual meaning of the affix. DPs
of different levels of generalisation signal: 1)
the
class of source unit that motivates the derivative and the direction
of motivation between different classes of words; 2)
the
part of speech of the derivative; 3)
the
lexical sets and semantic features of derivatives.

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When it comes to learning and analyzing a language, especially a new language, a good place to start is by studying the different parts of speech. Most languages in the world can be broken down into eight parts of speech, but English can sometimes have 10 parts of speech, depending on who you ask. Knowing the parts of speech can help people to understand how words come together to form sentences and how sentences are strung together to create speech. Although it’s likely that most students are already familiar with these parts of grammar, it never hurts to have a bit of a refresher.

About the 10 Parts of Speech

Before explaining the 10 parts of speech, it’s important to understand that most organizations today consider there only to be eight parts of speech and in some cases, nine parts of speech. Both articles and determiners/quantifiers are the two parts of grammar that may sometimes be left out.

1. Noun: Person, Place or Thing

You may be wondering which words are nouns? A noun is defined as a person, place, thing or idea. Proper nouns, which are specific nouns that a person knows (such as the name of a restaurant), always begin with a capital letter. Common nouns, which are general words, such as «cars,» are not capitalized.

2. Pronoun: In Place of a Noun

A pronoun is a word that can be used in place of a noun, typically after the noun itself has already been stated. The pronouns are «I, You, He, She, It, We, They.» An example of this in speech is, «James likes to eat pizza, but he prefers pepperoni.» In this case, «he» is the pronoun because it is being used in place of the noun which is «James.»

3. Verb: An Action Word

A verb is one of the 10 parts of speech that can be confusing for language learners because it needs to be conjugated based on the tense and the pronoun. A verb is an action word or «doing» word that signifies movement in some way. Some examples of verbs are «run,» «jump,» «eat,» «kiss,» «study» etc.

4. Adjective: Describes a Noun

An adjective is a word that’s used to describe a specific noun and to provide more detail to the listener. It’s one of the essential parts of grammar, otherwise language would be dull and boring and it would be difficult to identify things. For instance, instead of saying «The car,» the speaker can say, «The red car.» In this case, «red» is the adjective, because it tells the listener what the car looks like.

5. Article: Type of Adjective*

An article is another type of adjective that may not be considered a part of speech by some but can be sometimes be counted towards the 10 parts of speech, at least in English. This is likely because not all languages have articles. An article is either the word «a» «an» or «the» and is used to give more information about a common noun. Is that red car a car you recognize (your mom’s car), or is it a random red car driving on the highway? If so, you can either say «The red car» if you recognize it or «A red car» if you don’t recognize it. «An» is used before a noun that begins with a vowel sound, like «octopus» or «hour.»

6. Determiner/Quantifier States How Many*

A determiner or quantifier is another one of the 10 parts of speech that’s not always counted because it can also be considered an adjective. Additionally, articles can sometimes be considered determiners as well, which is why both articles and determiners are usually left out of the eight parts of speech. A determiner or quantifier is used to state how many or how much of a noun there is. For instance, in the sentence «There are many children at the playground» the word «many» is the determiner.

7. Adverb: Describes a Verb

An adverb is yet another type of adjective that’s used to describe a verb, but it can also describe an adjective or another adverb. Sometimes, an adverb ends in «ly» but not always. An adverb can also be words like «very» and «too.» If you’re unsure as to whether or not a word is considered an adverb, check to see if it answers the question «How?» For example, in the sentence, «Madison frantically did her homework» ask yourself, «How did Madison do her homework?» Frantically.

8. Conjunction: Used to Connect Sentences

A conjunction is a word like «if» «but» or «and» which is used to connect sentences or clauses together. For example, if you have two sentences like «I am hungry» and «I am angry,» you can join these together with the conjunction «and.» Now, the sentence is, «I am hungry and angry.»

9. Preposition: Used to State Location

A preposition is one of the most exciting parts of grammar for children to learn because they can have a lot of fun with it. Because a preposition is used to describe the location of something in relation to something else, such as «under» «beside» or «next to» children can use their bodies or objects to represent prepositions or prepositional phrases.

10. Interjection: Used to Express Emotion

An interjection is used to express emotion in a sentence. It could be a word like «Woah!» or «Oops!» Instead of saying something like, «The boy was surprised,» you could use an interjection to instead say_»‘Wow!’ Said the boy in surprise.»_

According to traditional grammar, a word is defined as, “the basic unit of language”. The word is usually a speech sound or mixture of sounds which is represented in speaking and writing.

Few examples of words are fan, cat, building, scooter, kite, gun, jug, pen, dog, chair, tree, football, sky, etc.

You can also define it as, “a letter or group/set of letters which has some meaning”. So, therefore the words are classified according to their meaning and action.

It works as a symbol to represent/refer to something/someone in the language.

The group of words makes a sentence. These sentences contain different types of functions (of the words) in it.

The structure (formation) of words can be studied with Morphology which is usually a branch (part) of linguistics.

The meaning of words can be studied with Lexical semantics which is also a branch (part) of linguistics.

Also Read: What is a Sentence in English Grammar? | Best Guide for 2021

The word can be used in many ways. Few of them are mentioned below.

1. Noun (rabbit, ring, pencil, US, etc)
2. Pronoun (he, she, it, we, they, etc)
3. Adjective (big, small, fast, slow, etc)
4. Verb (jumping, singing, dancing, etc)
5. Adverb (slowly, fastly, smoothly, etc)
6. Preposition (in, on, into, for, under, etc)
7. Conjunction (and, or, but, etc)
8. Subject (in the sentences)
9. Verb and many more!

Now, let us understand the basic rules of the words.

Rules/Conditions for word

There are some set of rules (criteria) in the English Language which describes the basic necessity of becoming a proper word.

Rule 1: Every word should have some potential pause in between the speech and space should be given in between while writing.

For example, consider the two words like “football” and “match” which are two different words. So, if you want to use them in a sentence, you need to give a pause in between the words for pronouncing.

It cannot be like “Iwanttowatchafootballmatch” which is very difficult to read (without spaces).

But, if you give pause between the words while reading like, “I”, “want”, “to”, “watch”, “a”, “football”, “match”.

Example Sentence: I want to watch a football match.

We can observe that the above sentence can be read more conveniently and it is the only correct way to read, speak and write.

• Incorrect: Iwanttowatchafootballmatch.
• Correct: I want to watch a football match.

So, always remember that pauses and spaces should be there in between the words.

Rule 2: Every word in English grammar must contain at least one root word.

The root word is a basic word which has meaning in it. But if we further break down the words, then it can’t be a word anymore and it also doesn’t have any meaning in it.

So, let us consider the above example which is “football”. If we break this word further, (such as “foot” + “ball”), we can observe that it has some meaning (even after breaking down).

Now if we further break down the above two words (“foot” + “ball”) like “fo” + “ot” and “ba” + “ll”, then we can observe that the words which are divided have no meaning to it.

So, always you need to remember that the word should have atleast one root word.

Rule 3: Every word you want to use should have some meaning.

Yes, you heard it right!

We know that there are many words in the English Language. If you have any doubt or don’t know the meaning of it, then you can check in the dictionary.

But there are also words which are not defined in the English Language. Many words don’t have any meaning.

So, you need to use only the words which have some meaning in it.

For example, consider the words “Nuculer” and “lakkanah” are not defined in English Language and doesn’t have any meaning.

Always remember that not every word in the language have some meaning to it.

Also Read: 12 Rules of Grammar | (Grammar Basic Rules with examples)

More examples of Word

Words List	Words List
apple	ice
aeroplane	jam
bat	king
biscuit	life
cap	mango
doll	nest
eagle	orange
fish	pride
grapes	raincoat
happy	sad

Quiz Time! (Test your knowledge here)

Summary: (What is a word?)

• Generally, the word is the basic and smallest unit in the language.
• It is categorised based on its meaning.
• Morphology is the study of Words structure (formation) and Lexical semantics is the study of meanings of the words. These both belong to a branch of Linguistics.
• A word should have at least one root and meaning to it.

Also Read: What is Grammar? | (Grammar definition, types & examples) | Best Guide 2021

If you are interested to learn more, then you can refer wikipedia from here.

I hope that you understood the topic “What is a word?”. If you still have any doubts, then comment down below and we will respond as soon as possible. Thank You.

What are word parts?[edit | edit source]

First, try to answer these questions by filling in the blanks:

1. To ‘redo’ means: to do ____ (Answer)

2. The word which starts the same as ‘careful’, but means its opposite is: ____ (Answer)

3. If John is 2 metres tall and Harry is 1.8 metres tall, then John is tall__ than Harry. (Answer)

If you answered these questions right, then this shows that you already know a bit about word parts.

Knowing what they mean and how they work is a very powerful tool.

What types of word parts are there?[edit | edit source]

Prefixes[edit | edit source]

Look at these words:

rename, restart, redesign

1. Where does ‘re-‘ go in these words and what does it mean? (Answer)

A word part which always features at the front of a word is called a prefix (pronounced: PREE-fikz).

Place a possible prefix before these words and start to think about how it changes the meaning of the word (the first one has been done for you):

2. kind

(unkind)

The prefix is: un- (make sure you remember the dash after a prefix)

3. polite

(________)

The prefix is: (Answer)

4. fire

(_______)

The prefix is: (Answer)

5. come

(________)

The prefix is: (Answer)

6. mature

(_________)

The prefix is: (Answer)

Suffixes[edit | edit source]

Now look at these words:

fearless, careless, hatless

1. Where does ‘-less’ go in these words and what does it mean? (Answer)

A word part which always features at the end of a word is called a suffix (pronounced: SUFF-ikz).

Test your suffix knowledge and continue thinking about how it changes the meaning of the word (the first one has been done for you):

2. If Alex is heavier than everyone, then he is the: heaviest

The suffix is: -est (make sure you remember to write the dash «-» before a suffix)

3. The process of attracting is called: ______

The suffix is: _____ (Answer)

4. If someone takes a lot of care, then they are described as: ________

The suffix is: _____ (Answer)

5. If someone is without fear, then they are: ________

The suffix is: _____ (Answer)

6. If someone is kind, they they usually show: ________

The suffix is: _____ (Answer)

Roots[edit | edit source]

Finally, there are the main parts of words called roots.

Roots usually appear in the middle of words, but that’s NOT a good way to think about them.

Look at these examples to see why:

• -dict- is the root of: predict, dictate, and diction
  • In these examples, -dict- is at the front and end of words.

• -port- is the root of: imports, exported, and transportation
  • In these examples, -port- is in the middle of words.

(Notice how when we write a root, we put a dash «-» on both sides. Beware that some authors don’t and would just write ‘port’, though.)

Here are two key points to help you tell if a word part is a root:

POINT 1

First, notice how prefixes and suffixes can never stand on their own.

We don’t say: un-, re-, -ness, or -tion

On the other hand, roots might stand on their own.

We do say: kind, fear, and come.

We don’t say: dict

(We do say over- as ‘over’ and ‘-less’ as ‘less’, but this is an example of a prefix and suffix which have the same spelling as a root. Now you see a reason why we ALWAYS put the dashes with them.)

POINT 2

Second, notice how roots carry the main meaning of a word and are what we attach the prefixes and suffixes to.

Try to identify the roots in these words (the first one has been done for you):

1. For antimatter, the root is -matter-

2. For misfire, the root is: ______ (Answer)

3. For transport, export, and support, the root of all of them is: ______ (Answer)

4. For talk, talked, and talking, the root of all of them is: ______ (Answer)

5. For success, access, and recession, the root of all of them is: ______ (Answer)

So, remind yourself that the three types of parts of words are:

6. ______, ______, and ____ (Answer)

Watch out for rules![edit | edit source]

You may have been thinking about rules which tell you how prefixes, suffixes, and roots work.

Remember that English has no rules that work in ALL cases.

For instance, we get the plural of egg, tree, and hand by putting the suffix -s on the end:

eggs, trees, hands

But, we DON’T get the plural of goose that way (after all, it’s geese).

Here are 5 key points for you to remember about making and applying rules concerning word parts.

Make sure you think of other cases where they apply.

Rule 1: Use sense and not just spelling[edit | edit source]

re- is a prefix that means ‘again’, right?

So, what about ‘red’, ‘reck’, and ‘really?’

Well, spelling doesn’t tell you everything!

You can look for clues in pronunciation.

For instance, we usually say re- as «REE»; but this isn’t foolproof either, because of how we say ‘really.’

Start thinking about things to do with the sense of a word such as whether or not you can replace re- with other prefixes (like how ‘redo’ could be changed to ‘undo’).

Is it like this for suffixes, too?

Absolutely. Just think about how -ing is a suffix, but how it clearly isn’t a suffix for the words ‘sing’ and ‘thing.’

Rule 2: You cannot add prefixes and suffixes to everything[edit | edit source]

For the root -do-, we can attach prefixes and get:

redo, undo, overdo

Think for a moment about some prefixes we can’t attach to it (and look in the answer key for some possible answers):

1. _________ (Answer)

Is it like this for suffixes, too?

Just consider the word ‘fun.’

If an activity is more fun than every other activity, do we say it is the ‘funnest’ activity? No.

Rule 3: You cannot take prefixes and suffixes off everything[edit | edit source]

Which one can you NOT take the prefix anti- off?

antimatter, anticipate, antisocial

1. __________ (Answer)

Which one can you NOT take the prefix re- off?

redesign, resend, receive

2. __________ (Answer)

So, we cannot always take prefixes off words and be left with words.

Suffixes are a bit more complicated, because there are two types; one which you can nearly always take off, and one which you nearly always can’t.

We will talk more about this later; but for now, just don’t assume that you can always take a suffix off a word.

(Okay, that’s three helpful rules learned. I hope you are remembering to think of your own examples or this stuff won’t stick!)

Rule 4: Word parts can have more than one meaning[edit | edit source]

The ‘un-‘ in ‘unhappy’ has a different meaning to the un- in ‘undress’.

In the first case, ‘un-‘ means ‘not.’

In the second case, it just means ‘reversal.’

So, don’t make the mistake of believing that you will know the meaning of a word part after meeting it just once.

Rule 5: A word part can be spelled in more than one way[edit | edit source]

For prefixes, look at ‘in-‘, which means ‘not’, as in ‘injustice.’

1. What do we put before ‘possible’ to mean ‘not possible?’ (Answer)

For roots, look at ‘-vis-‘, which means ‘see’, as in ‘visual.’

Now consider that it can also be spelled ‘-vid-‘, as in ‘video.’

For suffixes, look at ‘-s’, which makes plurals, as in ‘eggs.’

2. But, what do we put at the end of ‘box’ to make it plural? (Answer)

So, remember that a word part can be spelled in more than one way.

Go over these five rules again before moving onto the next subsection.

In summary:

Be careful, because word parts CAN have multiple meanings, multiple spellings, and CAN’T be swapped, chopped off, or attached haphazardly.

The parts of speech[edit | edit source]

Sentences are made up of different types of words and each type has its own job to do in the sentence.

We call these types ‘parts of speech.’

There are lots of different ones, but we will look at the four main types.

Noun[edit | edit source]

A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea.

A common noun names a general item (like ‘dog’ or ‘happiness’).

A proper noun names a particular item (a particular person, particular place, particular thing,…) and always begins with a capital letter (like ‘Josh’ or ‘London’).

Anna is going to Germany on Friday and will take her bicycle on the journey.

The common nouns in this sentence are:

1. __________ (Answer)

The proper nouns in this sentence are:

2. __________ (Answer)

Nouns have a singular form (like: egg, hand, goose) and a plural form (like: eggs, hands, geese).

Finally, a pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun (so we don’t have to repeat it).

Examples include: she, he, they, it

When she goes to Germany, she will take her bike, because it has excellent cycling roads.

The pronouns in this sentence are:

3. __________ (Answer)

Adjective[edit | edit source]

An adjective is a word that describes a noun.

When it is cold and snowy, wear thick, black clothes.

The adjectives in this sentence are:

1. __________ (Answer)

Adjectives can be modified to make comparisons:

The comparative (pronounced: kom-PAH-ruh-tiv) of:

• tall is taller
• red is redder
• fun is more fun
• difficult is more difficult

The superlative (pronounced: soo-PURR-luh-tiv) of:

• tall is tallest
• red is reddest
• fun is most fun
• difficult is most difficult

Verb[edit | edit source]

A verb is a doing or action word.

Jack always runs to school while Anna eats her breakfast.

1. What are the verbs in this sentence? (Answer)

Verbs are quite complicated.

What is most important to us is learning the FORMS of a verb, because this is where suffixes feature.

As an example, the forms of ‘initiate’ are: initiate, initiates, initiated, initiating

We will look further into this in lesson 2.

Adverb[edit | edit source]

An adverb is a word that that modifies a verb, adjective, or even another adverb.

An adverb answers how, when, where, or to what extent.

I always do my work extremely carefully.

The adverbs in this sentence are:

1. __________ (Answer)

Notice how they often end in the suffix ‘-ly’.

Here are some more examples of adverbs: daily, completely, almost, often, never, soon, cleverly

Lesson 1 Quiz[edit | edit source]

If there was anything you didn’t understand, read it once more, because here’s a quiz (that you should try to get perfect before lesson 2):

1. What are the three main types of word parts?

2. What is the common root of ‘audio’, ‘audible’, and ‘audience’, and what do you think it means?

3. Deconstruct the word ‘prefixes’ into its word parts.

4. Which prefix can be found in the opposite to ‘increase?’

5. ‘non-believer’ features the prefix ‘non-‘ but keeps the dash. Are there examples where id doesn’t?

6. Does ‘over-‘ just mean ‘physically above’, as in ‘overhang’?

7. How else can you spell the suffix ‘-y’ (as in mess -> messy)?

8. What are the four main types of parts of speech?

9. Think of examples of adverbs that don’t end in ‘-ly.’

10. Think of three words that have more than one type of part of speech.

(Answers)

Answer Key[edit | edit source]

What are word parts? (Answers)[edit | edit source]

(Go back to questions)

1. again

2. careless

3. er (making the word ‘taller’)

What types of word parts are there? (Answers)[edit | edit source]

Prefixes (Answers)[edit | edit source]

(Go back to questions)

1. At the front and it means ‘again’.

2. (Already done as an example)

3. impolite; the prefix is: im-

4. misfire; the prefix is: mis-

5. overcome; the prefix is: over-

6. premature; the prefix is: pre-

Suffixes (Answers)[edit | edit source]

(Go back to questions)

1. At the end.

2. (Already done as an example)

3. attraction; the suffix is: -tion

4. careful; the suffix is: -ful

5. fearless; the suffix is: -less

6. kindness; the suffix is: -ness

Roots (Answers)[edit | edit source]

(Go back to questions)

1. (Already done as an example)

2. -fire-

3. -port-

4. -talk-

5. -cess-

6. prefix, suffix, and root

Watch out for rules! (Answers)[edit | edit source]

Rule 2: You cannot add prefixes and suffixes to everything (Answers)[edit | edit source]

(Go back to questions)

1. subdo, interdo, predo

Rule 3: You cannot take prefixes and suffixes off everything (Answers)[edit | edit source]

(Go back to questions)

1. anticipate

2. receive

Rule 5: A word part can be spelled in more than one way (Answers)[edit | edit source]

(Go back to questions)

1. im-, as in ‘impossible’

2. -es, as in ‘boxes’

The parts of speech (Answers)[edit | edit source]

Noun (Answers)[edit | edit source]

(Go back to questions)

1. bicycle, journey

2. Anna, Germany, Friday

3. she, it

Adjective (Answers)[edit | edit source]

(Go back to questions)

1. cold, snowy, thick, black

Adverb (Answers)[edit | edit source]

(Go back to questions)

1. extremely, carefully

Lesson 1 Quiz (Answers)[edit | edit source]

(Go back to questions)

1. prefix, root, suffix

2. -audi-, it means ‘hearing’ or ‘listening’

3. ‘pre-‘ is the prefix; ‘-fix-‘ is the root; ‘-es’ is the suffix

4. ‘de-‘ is the suffix, as in ‘decrease’

5. ‘nonprofit’ (if your example was different, check a dictionary)

6. No. It may also mean ‘excess’, as in ‘overambitious’, or ‘outer’, as in ‘overcoat.’

7. ‘-ey’, as in ‘clayey.’

8. noun, verb, adjective, adverb

9. often, soon

10. ‘abstract’ can be a noun or adjective. ‘fool’ can be a noun or verb. ‘set’ can be a noun, adjective, or verb.