HOW WORDS ARE
FORMED
LYNN W ZIMMERMAN, PHD
WHAT ARE WORDS?
• Words - “sound sequences that are related to
specific meanings” (p.5)
• Words have space between them
• Words are arbitrary –no inherent connection to the
object they represent.
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•
•
•
Sound = form
Concept = meaning
Conventional = accepted meanings
Sound symbolism = onomatopoeia
KNOWING WORDS
• When you know a word you know
•
•
•
•
the meaning
pronunciation
orthography
grammatical category or syntactic class it fits into
MORPHEMES
• The smallest unit of a word which has its own
meaning.
• one (monomorphemic) or more syllables
• may be a word on its own
• ball = 1
• balls = 2 – tree + s
• football = 2 – foot + ball
MEANING
• The morpheme must have some meaning
• -er
• When used with a verb – means the doer of
• When used with an adjective – means more
• With father or water, the -er has no separate
meaning - is not a morpheme
FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES
• Free morphemes
• words on their own
• football = foot + ball
• Bound morphemes
• cannot stand on their own
• unhappy = un + happy
• happiness = happ[y] + ness
AFFIXES
• Root (base) - morpheme to which an affix is added – it
may or may not be free
• unhappy = un + happy
• Stem (base) – root + affix – may or may not be a word
on its own
• Unhappiness = un + happ[y] + ness
• Prefixes – before the root – related to meaning
• unhappy = un + happy
• Suffixes – after the root – related to part of speech
• Unhappiness = un + happ[y] + ness
• Infixes – morphemes inserted into other morphemes
• Not very common in English
GROUPING UNITS BY TYPES OF
MORPHEME
simple
Complex compoun compoundd
complex
1 free
morpheme
1 free
2 free
morpheme + morphemes
1 or more
bound
morphemes
book
green
books
greener
2 free morphemes + 1 or
more bound
morphemes
bookcase bookcases
greenhouse greenhouses
GRAMMATICAL GROUPINGS
• Nouns
• Pronouns
• Verbs
• Adjectives
• Adverbs
• Prepositions
• Conjunctions
• Interjections
There is scientific evidence that studying grammar
does not improve reading and writing skills.
Grammar acquisition through well-designed
materials is more effective.
CONTENT WORDS AND FUNCTION
WORDS
• Content words
• Denote concepts – convey meaning
• nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
• open class – new words are added regularly
• Function words
• no clear lexical meaning
• provide grammatical connections among the content
words
• determiners, quantifiers, pronouns, auxiliaries, prepositions,
conjunctions, particles, intensifiers, interjections
• closed class – new words are almost never added
• The brain puts more emphasis on content words.
REFERENCES
• Freeman, D. & Freeman, Y. (2014). Essential
linguistics. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
• Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., and Hyams, N. (2007). An
introduction to language. 8th ed. Boston: Thomson
Wadsworth.