Exercises

Exercise 1. Comment on the origin and meaning of the prefixes in the

following words.
1. Afloat, afoot, afresh, alight, along, anew, awaken. Germanic
2. Amoral, anomalous, aseptic. Greek
3. Uncomfortable, unequal, unhappy, unreal, unsafe. Old English
4. Unarm, unbelt, unbind, uncap, undress, unmask, untie. Old English
5. Disagree, disapprove, discomfort, disobey. French
6. Disappear, disarrange, disband, disconnect, disjoin. Greek

Exercise 2. Form adjectives by adding the negative prefix in- or its

allomorphs il-, im-, ir-.
Inaccurate, inactive, inattentive, incapable, uncomparable, inconvenient,
incorrect, unfrequent, unhuman, illegal, illiterate, illogical, immoral, immovable,
impossible, improbable, improper, irregular, irrespective, irrational.
Exercise 3. Arrange the following noun-forming suffixes into groups
according to their origin and productivity into: A: a) native, b) foreign; B: a)
productive, b) non-productive.
-ade, -age, -an/-ian, -ance/-ence, -ancy/-ency, -ant/-ent, -ar, -ard/-art, -asm, -
ast, -ate/-at, -су, -dom, -ee, -eer, -er, -ess, -ful, -hood, -ier/-yer, -ing, -ie/-y, -ic, -ice,
-ics, -ine, -ion, -ism, -ist, -ite, -let, -ling, -ment, -mony, -ness, -oid, -or, -ory, -our/-
eur, -ry/-ery, -ship, -ster, -th, -tion, -tude, -ty, -ure, -y.

Exercise 4. Comment on the meaning of the diminutive suffixes -ette/-et, -

let, -kin, -ling, -y/-ey. Form diminutive nouns from the following nouns.
Diminutive suffix - a group of letters that are added to the end of a word to
show that something is smaller than things of that type usually are.

-ette/-et: novel= novelette, cigar = cigarette, kitchen = kitchenette, room =

roomette;
-let: book = booklet, circle = circlet, cloud = cloudlet, drop = droplet, king =
kinglet, lake= lakelet, root = rootlet, stream = streamlet, flat= flatlet, leaf= leaflet,
eye= eyelet;
-kin: cat, lamb, wolf, boy;
-ling: duck, duke, cat, gift, first, week, under, lord, prince, king; ash, oak;
year, seed, squire;
- y/-ey : aunt, bud, dog, girl, mum.

Exercise 5. Comment on the meaning of the suffix -en. Form verbs in -en
from the following adjectives.
-en:
Old English, productive. It forms verb from nouns and adjectives. It means “to
make”, “to make like”
Blacken, broaden (= to become wider), dampen (to make something slightly
wet), dark= darken, deepen, fatten, flatten, gladden(=to make somebody feel
pleased or happy), harden(= to become or make something become solid or stiff),
lighten(=to reduce the amount of work, debt, worry, etc. that somebody has),
ripen(=дозрівати), roughen, quieten(=to become calmer or less noisy), sadden,
sicken(=to make somebody feel very shocked and angry), sharpen, soften,
stiffen(= to make yourself or part of your body straight and still), straighten,
weaken(=to make somebody/something less strong or powerful;), whiten, widen.

Exercise 6. Comment on the meaning of the suffix -(i)fy. Form verbs in -(i)fy
after the following models:
-(i)fy
French from Latin, non-productive. It has the following senses: "to make", "to
produce", "to bring to a certain state": electrify, specify, terrify, simplify, intensify.
Model 1: n + -(i)fy → V: gas — gasify;
Model 2: adj + -(i)fy → V: simple — simplify.
Acid-Acidify, beauty-beautify, classify, dandy(dandify) - a man who cares a lot
about his clothes and appearance, dignity(dignify)- гідність, electric(electrify),
example(exemplify), false(falsify)-фальшивий, bit(bitfy), horrific(horrify),
intensive ( intensify), mystic (mystify), pacific (pacify), pretty(prettify), pure
(purify), quality (qualify), satisfaction (satisfy ), terrific (terrify), type (typify).
Exercise 7. Arrange the following compounds according to the type of
composition and the linking elements into:
a) those formed by juxtaposition: undertaker, looking-glass, red-hot, butter-
fingers, lady-bird, workday, midday, frying-pan, sick-leave, queen-bee, fine-
looking, washing-machine, high-heeled, touch-me-not, cherry-orchard, note-book,
gas-mask, fountain-pen, sunburnt, inlet, black-eyed, bloodtest, night-flight, oil-
rich, factory-packed, waste-paper-basket, nearby, deep-cut, far-gone, hard-
working, peace-loving.
b) those with a vowel or a consonant as a linking element: Anglo-American,
speedometer, handicraft, salesman, electroplate, saleslady, Turco-Russian,
c) those with linking elements represented by conjunctions and prepositions:
Man-of-war, editor-in-chief, get-at-able, stay-at-home, up-to-date, officer-in-
charge, hide-and-seek, servant-of-all-work, give-and-take, well-to-live, mother-in-
law, once-a-year, do-it-yourself, difficult-to-leam.
Exercise 8. Arrange the following compound adjectives into groups
according to the patterns after which they were formed.
go-slow(V+Adv), indoor, devil-may-care, never-ending.
Adj+N: Blue-eyed, fair-haired, first-rate, second-class, clean-shaven, deep-cut,
old-fashioned, ill-bred, ill-mannered, wide-spreading, true-to-life, rough-skinned.
N+Adj: iron-rich, frost-resistant, waterproof, metal-cutting, breath-taking, cruel-
hearted, knee-deep, world-old, life-long, deaf-mute.
N+N: war-damaged, one-sided, five-year, Anglo-American, two-day.
Adv+V: far-gone, wide-spread, all-embracing, hard-working, hard-won.
Adv+Adj: well-bred, no-longer-young.
Adj+V: young-looking, nice-looking, tired-looking, ill-fitting, fast-tiring.
 N+V: duty-bound, bare-headed, water-beaten peace-loving, snow-covered,,
world-known, life-giving, freedom-loving.
Adj+Adj: light-grey, dark-blue, rough-and-ready.

Exercise 9. Comment on the term «conversion». Find examples of

conversion in the sentences below. State to what part of speech these words
belong.
Conversion - is the process of changing or converting the class of a word
without changing its form.
1. Have you ever summered in the country? It’s a marvelous thing, isn’t it?
(summer – to summer) N-V
2. You are not down. Nothing will down you. (down-down) Adj-V
3. I picture myself taking courage to make a declaration to Miss Larkins. (a
picture – to picture) N-V
4. She might come and room with her. (a room – to room) N-V
5. The room faced the street. (a face – to face) N-V
6. From the first Soames had nosed out Darties’s nature. (nose-to nosed out)
N-V
7. D’you think you are the man to head it? (a head – to head) N-V
8. She fingered the dollar. (a finger – to fingered) N-V
9. That’s Gloucester Road. Plenty of time to get there if we tube. (tube-to
tube) N-V
10. In the long run, anyone is bound to think that the left is right, and the
right is wrong. (right – right) Adj-N
11. At last they came into the open. (to open – a open) V-N
12. Isabel wirelessed him from the ship. (wirelessed- wireless) V-Adj

Exercise 10. Comment on the phenomenon of shortening (or clipping).

Arrange the following shortenings into:

a) those formed by apocope: Pub, photo, chap, doc, pop, prep, exam, taxi, fan,
cap, imposs, math, gym, ad, lab, auto, mag, sis, zoo, gent.
b) those formed by aphaeresis: flu, bus, van, peal, cause, tween, cycle, story,
phone, mend, fend, plane, drome.
c) those formed by syncope: fridge, fancy, comfy, bike, specs, ma’am, vets,
ne'er, chute.

Exercise 11. Translate the following sentences. Pick оut telescoped words.
Arrange them into three groups as to the type of contraction.
1. It's neither breakfast nor lunch. It’s a kind of brunch, I should say. 2. You
might have sent them a cablegram (cable, telegram). 3. He was electrocuted
(electro, execution), as far as I remember. 4. He was glazing at her for some
minutes as if he were trying to recall where he had seen her before. 5. Could you
tell me where the nearest laundromat (laundry automat) is? 6. Can you explain
what a seadrome (sea, drome) is? 7. The smaze (smoke, haze) is too thick, one
can hardly see anything. 8. Smog (smoke, fog) is said to be a characteristic feature
of Great Britain’s weather. 9. At the door he was met by a swellegant (swell,
elegant) girl. 10. London is a city of smaze (smoke, haze).

Exercise 12. Analyze the poem SYMPHONY IN YELLOW by Oscar Wilde

(see Seminar 1, Ex. 6.) using the scheme of derivational analysis of the text
supplemented:
At derivational level of analysis the words in the text are represented by the
following structural types:
1) simple words (root words) which have only a root morpheme in the
structure. E.g. bridge, across, like, here, yellow, little, midge, big, full, hay, wharf,
scarf, thick, fog, along, quay, yellow, begin, fade, temple, feet, pale, green, like,
rod, jade;
2) derived words (affixational derivatives) which consist of a root and one
or more affixes. E.g. omnibus, restless, silken, rippled…………;
3) compound words (compounds) in which two or more stems are
combined into a lexical unit. E.g. butterfly, passer-by, omnibus…………..;
In conformity with structural types described above, the words in the
analysed text are built up by means of :
1) derivation a) prefixation – e.g. omnibus. Prefixes, found out in the
text may be defined as borrowed, productive/highly productive /non-productive
( )/ as to their semantics, they denote …….; a) suffixation – e.g. restless.
Suffixes, found out in the text may be defined as native, productive as to
semantics, it denote without.
2) word composition. According to their structure compounds in the
text are neutral (butterfly ), morphological ( passer-by), syntactic ( ).As to their
semantics, the compounds in the text are a) those whose meanings can really be
described as the sum of their constituent meanings; b) those the component (or
both) of which has changed its meaning; c) those in which the process of deducing
the meaning of the whole from those of the constituents is impossible. The
compounds in the text are coined after such patterns.