What is Word formation?
Word Formation
The most interesting thing to know about the forms words takes in English language is that words can be made from three principal parts. The parts are called morphemes. There is the core part that can form meaningful words on its own. When all three parts are not present(that is, if only two are found) then, the core part may either be at the beginning or at the end.
For example, in the words educate, education, educational, un-educationally and educationally, we find that educate is the core. All others are affixes. “Educate” being the core, “un” being the parts before the core, and “-ion”/”al” being the parts after the core . This two parts are called affixes. Affixes are of two kinds; those that come before (such as in our example), are called prefixes and those that come after are suffixes, (such as ion/a/Al) are called suffixes.
Therefore, the most common word Process to be found in the production of new English words is the process known as derivation or affixation and it is accomplished by means of large number of a small ‘bits’ of the English Language which are not, usually given separate listings in do dictionaries. These sma ‘bits’ are called affixes, and a few examples include un-mis, de-, un-, mis-, ful, -less, -ish, -ism, -ness. These makes it possible for an English word to be divided into three parts; a prefix, a stem (base) and a suffix. (A prefix is what comes before the stem. For example, demagnetize, while a suffix is what is attached to the end of the stem. For example, programmer). Once a stem/base (that is, part of word to which the rule of word formation applied) has undergone a rule of word formation, the derived word itself may become the base for another derivation, and so by re-application, it is possible to derive words considerable structural complexity. For example, the derivation of the word unfaithfulness is:
I. Faith
II. Faith-ful
III. Un-faith-ful
PREFIX MEANING EXAMPLES
Un Not, not good enough Unknown, unkind, untidy, unexpected
In Not, not good enough Incomplete, invalid, insane
Im Not, not good enough Impossible, immature
Ill Not, not good enough Illegal, illogical
Non Not absence Nonstick, non-smoking, non programmable
Mis Wrongly bad Mistake, mispronounce, misjudge, mislead
Dis Opposite feeling Disagree, disarm, discharge, disconnect
Any, anti Opposite against Antisocial, antivirus
De Do the opposite or remove, reduce Decide, debark, devitalize, devalue
a- Lacking in Asexual
Mal- Badly Maltreat, malfunction
Under Too late Underestimate, underrate
Re- Do again Recognize, rearrange, repeat
Over Too much Overheat
Auto- Self Automatic
Co- Together Coordinate
Neo New Neocolonial
Pan- All Pan-African
Pro- For Program
Problems
Language is a vehicle of thoughts. It is a part of the learning process. Each level of education demands a higher level of thought and invariably if understanding. The introduction aspects of a subject matter is usually simpler than the main aspect which get complex and more difficult as student cannot think along with the materials provided.
One major problem is the students’ intelligence. Intelligence is the individual level of understanding and grasp of materials provided to a student. Some students have what is referred to as low level IQ. They are slow learning materials and also relating such materials to information stored in order to achieve an understanding or correct answers.
Another problem is the student attention span. If a student lacks that moment of unseriousness to think, he lacks great level of understanding things that appear difficult, actually, only demands a moment of quick thoughts, of relating to and of finding the answer within the material in a stored memory. Here the student can not control his mind, he lacks discipline and therefore can not cope with information provided.
Language also demands a good knowledge of it. A student must a good grasp of the language expected in a subject matter before proceeding to call himself an expert in the field. Language is a highly organized systematic means of representing experience and as such it assists us to organize all the other ways of representing. It would be disaster to use engineering terms for a political discussion. It is important to have good knowledge of the language of a subject matter.
This way, the speaker in the user of such a language is respected for his knowledge.
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