LING 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Word Formation

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Linguistics
• Course: LING 1000
• Professor: Rosario Gomez

Document Summary

Topic 2. 4: rules of word formation: derivational morphology. Affixes include morphemes that can be prefixes, suffixes, infixes or circumfixes. In derivational morphology, affixes (usually suffixes in english) play an important role in that they attach to roots or stems to derive a new word with a new meaning, often changing the category of the root base. For example, familiar is an adjective that means to be well known. If we add the suffix ize, it changes the adjective into a verb, and it changes the meaning to to make something known. There are some regularities as to the type of base a morpheme may attach to, and the kind of category it changes to. (u or i)al: cause causal, habit habitual, ministry ministerial. Ful: hope hopeful, faith faithful, help helpful. Ic: democrat democratic, optimist optimistic, alcohol alcoholic. Less: penny penniless, clue clueless, mind mindless. Ous: nerve nervous, virtue virtuous, rigor rigorous. Ize: hospital hospitalize, material materialize, character characterize.