Word Formation
In linguistics, word formation is the creation of a new word
Compound Words
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes (the other word-formation process being derivation). That is, in familiar terms, compounding occurs when two or more words are joined together to make them one word. The meaning of the compound may be very different from the meanings of its components in isolation.
Prefixes
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed. For an example:
- unhappy : un is a negative or antonymic prefix.
- prefix, preview : pre is a prefix, with the sense of before
- redo, review. : re is a prefix meaning again.
- dishonest, disobey: dis is also a negative prefix, but it isn't a antonymic prefix.
- impolite, immature: im has the meaning of dis.
- inadequate, incomplete: in has the meaning of dis and im.
- atheist, anarchy : a and an have the meaning of dis, im, and in (not) and without.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefix
http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/prefixes.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefix
http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/prefixes.htm
Sufixes
A suffix is a group of letters placed at the end of a word to make a new word. A suffix can make a new word in one of two ways:
Inflectional suffixes
Inflectional suffixes do not change the meaning of the original word. So in "Every day I walk to school" and "Yesterday I walked to school", the words walk and walked have the same basic meaning. In "I have one car" and "I have two cars", the basic meaning of the words car and cars is exactly the same. In these cases, the suffix is added simply for grammatical "correctness". Look at these examples:
- inflectional (grammatical): for example, changing singular to plural (dog > dogs), or changing present tense to past tense (walk > walked). In this case, the basic meaning of the word does not change.
- derivational (the new word has a new meaning, "derived" from the original word): for example, teach > teacher or care > careful
Inflectional suffixes
Inflectional suffixes do not change the meaning of the original word. So in "Every day I walk to school" and "Yesterday I walked to school", the words walk and walked have the same basic meaning. In "I have one car" and "I have two cars", the basic meaning of the words car and cars is exactly the same. In these cases, the suffix is added simply for grammatical "correctness". Look at these examples:
Derivational suffixes
With derivational suffixes, the new word has a new meaning, and is usually a different part of speech. But the new meaning is related to the old meaning - it is "derived" from the old meaning.
We can add more than one suffix, as in this example:
derive (verb) + tion = derivation (noun) + al = derivational (adjective)
There are several hundred derivational suffixes. Here are some of the more common ones:
With derivational suffixes, the new word has a new meaning, and is usually a different part of speech. But the new meaning is related to the old meaning - it is "derived" from the old meaning.
We can add more than one suffix, as in this example:
derive (verb) + tion = derivation (noun) + al = derivational (adjective)
There are several hundred derivational suffixes. Here are some of the more common ones:
Source:
http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/suffixes.htm