Word formation: initial training sessions
This is another quite technical area but, at initial training level, it is unwise to focus on more than the teachable (and learnable) areas and leave to one side many of the issues in the in-service guide to word formation (although you should look there to remind yourself of more than the basics).
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The key ideas |
Obviously, the names and functions of the basic classes of words
will have to be presented and taught before you can consider how
English makes new words from its existing resources.
There is no attempt here, either, to cover more than the basic ideas
of morphology and the term is not used on any of the worksheets.
Terms used on worksheets are found below.
However, if you wish to introduce the term morpheme, that will be
helpful in allowing people to talk about the area. The topics
of bound and free morphemes, combining forms, bound bases etc.
should probably not need to be covered.
With that in mind, here are the main ideas that form the focus of these worksheets and mini-tasks:
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Workshop tasks |
Worksheet #1:
The first task draws on the participants' existing knowledge of word class and simply asks them to notice and describe what is happening.
In feedback to the tasks, your function is to introduce the technical terms with simple (and rather non-technical) definitions, and a clear example, as follows:
- conversion
- using an existing word in a different word class
For example:
I bank with Santander
Santander is a bank - prefixation
- adding to the beginning of a word
For example:
People say he was lucky not to have been badly hurt but he thinks he was unlucky to have had the accident! - suffixation
- adding to the end of a word
For example:
I told him speculation was dangerous but he speculated anyway - reduplication
- doubling a word or doubling with a small change
For example:
He chatted for a while but became bored with empty chit-chat quite soon - compounding
- combining two words to make a third meaning
For example:
The doorman checked our tickets - clipping
- shortening a word
For example:
We took the bus to the zoo - blending
- merging two words together to make a combined meaning (often
combined with clipping)
For example:
He's an Oxbridge graduate
Here's the key to task 1.:
- Conversion: noun to verb with the addition of the -d ending for tense
- Suffixation: noun to adverb
- Suffixation: verb to noun (doer)
- Prefixation: reversal of action
- Conversion: adjective to verb (or vice versa)
- Suffixation: verb to adjective
- Prefixation: antonym making
- Suffixation: adjective to verb
- Prefixation: time ordering
- Conversion: verb to noun (or vice versa)
- Conversion: adjective to noun
- Prefixation: size enhancement
- Compounding: verb + noun
- Clipping: removing the ending
- Clipping: removing the beginning
- Conversion: classifier noun to verb (note the stress change)
- Reduplication with a small change
- Blending (with clipping of the first word)
Task 2. on the worksheet is a revision of that with a simple matching task. It will allow people to go away with a record of the basics. You may need to have some more examples of each category in mind.
Worksheet #2
This worksheet focuses only on prefixation and suffixation but it is as well to remind yourself and your trainees that these are only two of the ways that English forms new words.
The first task is on prefixation and concerns only four types of meaning change with one or two examples of each only:
- negation
- making an opposite with un-, in-, im-, ir- ,a-, non-
- reversal
- reversing an action with de-, un-, dis-
- time and ordering
- with fore-, ex- ,pre-, post-, re-
- size and degree
- with super-, sub-, under-, mega-, over-, out-
There are many other functions that prefixes perform, of course,
and a fuller list is available in the in-service guide to the area.
Extend this task by asking for further examples of each prefix in
use and of other prefixes which perform the same type of function.
The second task concerns suffixes which form nouns, adjectives,
verbs and adverbs. Not all the possibilities are represented
but the in-service guide to the area provides a list for your
reference.
Extend this task, too, by asking for further examples of each suffix
in use and of other suffixes which perform the same type of
function.
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Related areas |
There are guides which include considerations of morphology, word formation (beyond the seven areas considered here), compounding and other guides to related areas.
| Related guides | |
| For trainees: | |
| lexis index | for the index to the guides in the initial plus area to lexis |
| essentials of word formation | for the guide to the basics |
| For you (as a reminder of what you need to know) | |
| lexis | for the in-service index of the guides in this area |
| word formation | for the in-service guide to this area which covers very much more |
| A-Z index | where you can find guides to or containing specific concepts and terms |