Roots, Prefixes and Suffixes
A root is a lexical content morpheme that cannot be analyzed into smaller parts.
Prefix means each affix precedes or follows other morphemes. Suffix is affix that
follows other morphemes. There is only prefix and suffix in English.
Morphemes
Bound
Affix
Prefix
Free
Root
Suffix
pre-
-ly -er
un-
-ful -or
conFigure 1 The Description of Affix (only for English)
These semantic units, including prefixes, suffixes or base word parts, become
more important when learners encounter sophisticated vocabulary (Padak, 2006). So
learning activities should also focus on helping students identify and learn to use these
parts within words. Nation (1990) mentioned that knowledge of Latin affixes and
roots has two main advantages for English learners, particularly in advanced learners.
It can be used to help the learning of unfamiliar words by relating these words to
known words or to known prefixes and suffixes. Additionally, it can be used as a way
of checking whether an unfamiliar word has been successfully guessed from context.
Affix includes prefixes and suffixes. Nation (1990) also stated that when employing
affixes and roots, learners need three skills. First, they have the ability to break new
words into parts so that the affixes and roots are revealed. Second, they need to know
the meanings of the parts. In the end, they need to be able to see a connection between
the meaning of the parts and the dictionary meaning of the new word. In the light of
the framework of Schmitt’s vocabulary learning strategies, analyzing affixes and roots
is one of the strategies for the discovery of a new word’s meaning. Besides, Hill
mentioned that guessing words form the context is the most important of all the
vocabulary learning strategies. It is very common strategy to be employed to guess
new words and can be used together with the strategy guessing meaning from context
(Clarke & Nation, 1980). When using the context to guess the meaning of the
unknown word, it needs some ways to check what your guess is correct. Breaking the
unknown word into its prefix, root, and suffix is one of the ways.
From Nagy’s (1992) research paper, he says that skilled learners need to have the
knowledge of structural analysis—the ability to gain information about the meaning,
pronunciation, and part of speech of new words from their prefixes, roots, and
suffixes. He noticed that structural analysis is beneficial for learners in some aspects.
It plays an important role in remembering the form of new words and helping students
remember the meanings of words. Besides, it can also help with decoding and spelling.
The most obviously role of structural analysis is to help students figure out the
meanings of new words. Another research from Smith (2002) also indicated that
learning about word structure is one of the most powerful strategies that learners can
use to expand vocabulary. He said that if we understand how these parts fit together,
we can better understand the meaning of the word itself. Above description of word
structure, it is one of the language learning strategies that is of central interest in
vocabulary learning. In a nutshell, an understanding of word formation is essential for
learners to make informed guesses about the meaning of unknown items (Gairns &
Redman, 1986).