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Learners can increase their vocabulary through knowledge of word formation. There are several ways of creating new words in English language. These include affixation, compounding, clipping, blending, borrowing and so on. There are a lot of terms used to describe various forms of words formation. Some of them include the following important concepts: inflection, derivation, and compounding.

At the basic level, words are made of ‘morphemes’. These are the smallest units of grammar: roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Native speakers recognize the morphemes as grammatically significant or meaningful.

Inflection occurs when a word has different forms but essentially the same meaning, and there is only a grammatical difference between them.

In contrast, derivation makes a word with a clearly different meaning.

Morphemes in morphology are the smallest units that carry meaning or fulfill some grammatical function. The word boy itself consists of one

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morpheme, and because it can stand by itself it can be called a free morpheme. In the word boys there are two morphemes boy, which is free, and s which is a bound morpheme, because it cannot stand by itself as it would have no meaning.

Free morphemes can be subdivided into two categories: lexical morphemes and inflectional morphemes. Lexical morphemes are words that have some meanings – verbs, adjectives, nouns. As there is no problem in adding new entities to this group of words, they are treated as an open class of words. Functional morphemes, on the other hand, are a closed class of words, articles, prepositions, pronouns which do not carry any meaning on their own, but only fulfill a grammatical function.

We will however concentrate on the process of word formation through affixation in this course.

3.2 Affixation is the process by which affixes combine with root words to form new words.

3.3 Affix is a bound morpheme, which attaches to a base(root/stem).

They are either prefixes or suffixes. Examples are , re, un, tion, tyetc 3.4. Prefixes are attached to the front of a base, e.g. ‘re-’– rewrite 3.5. Suffixes are attached to the end of a base, e.g. ‘-al’ –critical

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EDU 220

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3 What is affixation?

3.3.1 Prefixes

English Methods

Learners will be able to infer the meaning of a word if they know the meaning of the prefix.

Prefix Meaning Word class Examples

‘non-’ Negation/opposite Noun Adjective

Noun – nonstarter Adj - nonpartisan

‘un-’ Reverse action/

Opposite quality

Verb Adjective

untie, undo unsafe, unhappy

‘re-’ Repeat action Verb Noun

retie, rewrite, reunion

Other examples include:

3.3.1.1. Classifications of Prefixes 1. Prefixes of Negative

un - not as in unfortunate

in - not as in inexperience, indirect im - not as in improper, immobile il- not as in illegal, illogical

ir - not as in irregular, irresponsible dis - not as in discomfort, dishonest 2. Prefixes showing attitude

counter- against as in counterproductive, counterattack contra- against as in contraceptive

anti- against as in antibiotics, anticrime

pro- supporting as in prodemocracy, pro-government co- together as in co-author, co-lecturer

3. Prefixes showing position or quality

inter- between as in inter-house, international trans- across as in trans-sahara, transplant frater- brother as in fraternity, fraternal

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4. Prefixes of numbers

uni- one as in unilateral, uni-sex bi- two as in bilingual, bicameral tri- three as in triangle, trigonometry multi- many as in multipurpose, multilateral poly- many as in polytechnic, polysyllabic 5. Prefixes showing time

fore- before as in forewarned, foreknowledge pre- before as in prenatal, predict

post- after as in postmortem, postgraduate ex- out as in ex-president, expel

3.3.2 Suffixes

Suffixes most often change the word class of the base.

Suffix Word class Word class changed to

Examples

‘-ity’ Adjective Noun electric – electricity obese – obesity

‘-ous’ Noun Adjective fame – famous

glamour – glamorous

‘-al’ Noun Adjective institution – institutional

‘-able’ Verb Adjective print – printable drink – drinkable

‘-ize’ Adjective Verb concrete – concretize A word can contain both prefix and suffix. E.g. “pre arrangement”. This can be broken into:

Prefix – pre (before) Base – arrange (verb)

uffix – ment

(changes word class to noun)

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EDU 220

English Methods

Vocabulary is the most sizeable and unmanageable component in second language learning. You will need to encourage your students to explore all means to develop their vocabulary.

3.2.3 Types of Affixation

During process of affixation, words classes may be altered or without changing the part of speech. For instance, the word ‘friend’ is a common noun. However, when the prefix ‘be’ is added to this base word, it becomes ‘befriend’ – which belongs to verb class. This form of affixation in which the word class is affected is referred to as Derivational Affixation.

On the other hand, when the word class is not affected or changed it is called Inflexional Affixation. For instance, when a suffix ‘ship’ is added to the base word ‘friend’ (a noun), it becomes ‘friendship’ the new word

‘friendship’ also belongs to noun class, it does not change its form.