Word Formation: Prefixes, Suffixes and Compound Words – 2nd Year Literary Stream – Algeria

Word Formation: Prefixes, Suffixes and Compound Words

Word formation is the process of creating new words from existing ones. Understanding how words are formed helps learners expand their vocabulary, guess the meaning of unfamiliar words, and improve their reading comprehension and writing skills.

Prefixes

Prefixes are added to the beginning of a word to change its meaning. Common prefixes:
Un-, in-, im-, il-, ir-, dis-, non- (negative/opposite): happy → unhappy, possible → impossible, legal → illegal, regular → irregular, agree → disagree, sense → nonsense.
Re- (again): write → rewrite, build → rebuild, do → redo.
Pre- (before): view → preview, pay → prepay, school → preschool.
Mis- (wrong/wrongly): understand → misunderstand, lead → mislead, spell → misspell.
Over- (too much): sleep → oversleep, eat → overeat, load → overload.
Under- (too little): cook → undercook, estimate → underestimate, developed → underdeveloped.
Inter- (between): national → international, act → interact, net → internet.

Suffixes

Suffixes are added to the end of a word to change its grammatical function or meaning.
Noun suffixes: -ment (develop → development), -tion/-sion (educate → education, decide → decision), -ity (active → activity), -ness (happy → happiness), -er/-or (teach → teacher, act → actor), -ance/-ence (perform → performance, differ → difference).
Adjective suffixes: -ful (beauty → beautiful), -less (care → careless), -able (comfort → comfortable), -ive (attract → attractive), -ous (danger → dangerous), -al (nature → natural), -y (sun → sunny).
Verb suffixes: -ize (modern → modernize), -ify (beauty → beautify), -en (wide → widen).
Adverb suffixes: -ly (quick → quickly), -wise (clock → clockwise).

Compound Words

Compound words are formed by combining two or more words.
Closed compounds (written as one word): bedroom, toothpaste, sunflower, homework, football.
Open compounds (written as separate words): ice cream, post office, high school, living room.
Hyphenated compounds (connected by a hyphen): mother-in-law, well-known, six-year-old, check-in.

Word Families

Learning word families helps you understand how words are related. Example: act (verb) → action (noun) → active (adjective) → actively (adverb) → activity (noun) → react (verb) → reaction (noun) → reactive (adjective).

Conversion (Zero Derivation)

Some words can change their grammatical function without adding affixes. Examples: email (noun) → to email (verb), drink (verb) → a drink (noun), clean (adjective) → to clean (verb).

Exercises

1. Add a prefix to form the opposite: possible, honest, legal, obey, appear.
2. Add a suffix to change the word class: beauty (→ adjective), develop (→ noun), quick (→ adverb).
3. Create three compound words from each type: closed, open, hyphenated.

For more English lessons, check Tenses Review: Present, Past and Future and Modal Auxiliaries: Can, May, Must, Should.

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