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Tema 11 B
Tema 11 B
1.CONVERSION
It is a process in which an item is adapted or converted to a
new word-class without the addition of a suffix.
The most common are the following :
a) Verb to noun conversion. Ex., to love > love
b)Adjective to noun conversion. Ex., a daily newspaper > a daily
c) Noun to verb conversion. Ex., bottle > to bottle
d)Adjective to verb conversion. Ex., a brick garage > the garage
is brick.
2.AFFIXATION
In this group we include :
a.) PREFIXES, which do not generally alter the word-class of the base.
Examples :
1. Negative prefixes : un- , in- , il(l)- ,...
Ex., unfair, inhuman, illogical.
2. Prefixes of Degree/Size : super-, under-,
Ex., superman, undercook.
3. Pejorative prefixes : mal- , pseudo-,...
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-hood , -ship,
Ex., boyhood, friendship.
6.Etc
3. COMPOUNDING
A compound is a unit consisting of 2 or more bases.
Ortographically, compounds are written :
b.) SOLID : in 1 word. Ex., bedroom, headache, hangman,
c.) HYPHENATED : Ex., tax-free, sister-in-law,
d.) OPEN : Ex., reading material, television screen, navy blue,
Phonologically, they have got a MAIN STRESS on the first
element and a SECONDARY STRESS on the second one.
Ex., bed,room .
Semantically, they can be seen to be isolated from ordinary
syntactic constructions by having a meaning which may be related to
but cannot simply be inferred from the meaning of its parts.
Compounds may be :
1.- Reduplicative , which are compounds with 2 or more elements
that are identical or only slightly different, such as
knock-knock, tick-tock,
2.- Clipping , which implies the substraction of 1 or more syllables
from a word, which is also available in its full form,
such as phone (telephone), exam (examination),
ad (advertisement),
3.- Blend , in which, at least, 1 of the elements is fragmentary when
compared to its corresponding word for, such as Interpol
(International Police), Eurovision (European Television),
4.- Acronyms , which are words formed from the initial letters of
words that make up a descriptive or a proper name,
such as FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), UFO
(Unidentified Flying Object),
Up till now we have made reference to word-formation, which is
going to be useful for our students in order to establish relationships
between new words and the previous known ones.
3.Many children learn new words relatively quickly, but they also
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