Questions and Tasks

Enumerate the three important means of word formation and explain their respective role in the expansion of English vocabulary.

Affixation

1.  What is affixation? What is its alternative name?

2.  What is the difference between prefixation and suffixation?

3.  What are the characteristics of prefixes and suffixes?

4.  What is the best way to classify prefixes? Why?

5.  Form negatives with each of the following words by using one of these prefixes dis-, il- ,  ini- ,  in- , ir- , non- , un- .

   smoker   capable      practical   obey  

   security   relevant     mature     ability 

   officially  willingness  legal       agreement 

   logical    loyal       convenient  athletic

6. Turn the following nouns and adjectives into verbs with -en -ify, -ize and then choose them to  fill in the blanks in the sentences that follow.

hard	horror
modern	memory
false	apology
deep	glory
sterile	length
intense	beauty
fat	sympathy

a.  He ______ for interrupting her.

b.  She tried to____________her room with posters and plants.

c.  A study has been ordered into the feasibility of ___the airport's main runway by two hundred metres.

d.  However much they____________, they all felt it was her fault.

e.  Soya is excellent food____________cattle.

f.  She laughed and that seemed to____________her voice.

g.  Forty thousand pound had been spent on____________the station.

f. ____________the bottles by immersing them in boiling water for fifteen minutes.

7.  Each of the following sentences contains a word printed in italics. Complete the sentence by using this word to form a noun to refer to a person.

a.   If you are employed by a company, you are one of its______.

b.  A____________is someone whose job is politics.

c.  The_________ in a discussion are the people who participate in it.

d.  A woman who works as a________does the same job as a -waiter.

e.  The person who conducts an orchestra or choir is called the   ________.

f.  Your____________is the person who teaches you.

g. A________is someone who earns their living by playing the piano.

h. If someone examines you, you are the_______and he or she is the

    ———. 

8. Match Column A with Column B and give two examples for each.

     A               B                                Examples

    trans-         before

mono-        over, above

super-         one

auto-          between

sub-           self

mal-           little, small

inter-          bad, badly

mini-          below

pre-            across

    ex-              former          

Compounding

1.  What are the criteria by which to differentiate compounds from  free phrases? What do you think of these criteria?

2.   Analyse the following compound words and explain their internal grammatical relationship.

heartbeat               brainwashing

movie-goer             baking powder

far-reaching             dog-tired

lion-hearted             love-sick

boyfriend               peace-loving

snap decision            easy chair

on-coming              tax-free

light-blue               goings-on

3.  What are the usual methods to form compound verbs? Give examples.

4.  Form compounds using the following either as the first or the second element of the compound as indicated and translate the words into Chinese.

    well-          -bound      -work           -worthy

    -woman      -wide       -minded        -style

self-           -related     -proof          once-

news-        mock-       -in-law          home-

    half-           ever-         -conscious    - based   

 

Conversion

1. What is conversion? What do you think of the alternatives functional shift and zero -derivation?

2.  In what way is conversion different from suffixation?

3.  What classes of words are most frequently converted?

4.  In what way are verbs converted from nouns semantically related to the original nouns and vice versa?

5.  Explain partial conversion and full conversion with examples.

6.  What changes are occasionally involved in the process of conversion?

7.  Pick out the words which you think are converted in the following sentences and tell how they are converted.

a.  We can't stomach such an insult.

b.  Robert Acheson roomed right next to me.

c.  He wolfed down his lunch.

d.  There is no come and go with her.

e.   I'm one of his familiars.

f.  Poor innocents!

g.  She flatted her last note.

h.  The engineers ahed and ouched at the new machines, 

i.  Come to the fire and have a warm, 

j.  Is Bill Jackson a has-been or a might-have-been?

k.  He Hamleted at the chance and then he regretted for it. 

1.  These shoes were an excellent buy.

m.  He turned his head and smoothed back the hair over one temple. 

 

Blending

Analyse the blends and translate them into Chinese.

  motel           humint       advertisetics

  psywarrior       hoverpork    chunnel

  hi-fi            cinemactress

Clipping

  Restore the full forms of the following words and see how these clipped words are

formed.

   copter         dorm        lab         prefab

   gas              prof         scope     champ

   sarge          mike        ad          tec

Acronymy

  1. Both initialisms and acronyms are formed to a certain extent from initial letters. Is there any difference between them? Illustrate your point with examples.

  2.  What do the short forms stand for?

    kg       ft      cf       cm      $

    ibid      etc.    VIP     OPEC    TOEFL

3.  Choose a word from the list to fill in each of the blanks. 

    SALT       laser       radar      sonar 

    AIDS       WHO      G-man     BASIC

a.  There was a wide coverage of the__________talks in the press.

b.  There are enemy aircraft on the____________screen.

c. ____________is still an incurable disease.

d.  If one knows____________language, one will find it easy to learn how to use computers.

e. ____________ has long been applied to surgery in medicine.

f. ____________is an international agency of the United Nations which is concerned with  improving health standards and services throughout the world.

g. Passive_______listens for noises emanating from a submarine.

h.The person who works for the Federal Bureau of Investigation is called a _______

 

Commonization of Proper Names

   Study the following sentences and pick out the words which used to be proper names and explain the meanings in relation to their origins.

a.  One of the goals of high-powered advertising is to tantalize us with items we can't quite afford.

b.  We have decided that it is impossible to cheat when that Argus-eyed professor gives an exam.

c.  The number of mirrors in the average home suggests that there is a little narcissism in each of us.

d.  The terrorists have embarked on a scheme to sabotage as many factories in the Common Market countries as possible.

e.  Our new football coach is a real martinet; he even calls our homes at night to see whether we are in.

f.  How can such a disgusting yahoo really think he has charm and style?

g.  This Shylock demands 10 percent per week on all loans, and he has the enforcers to guarantee payment.

h. She began the daily round of washing and hoovering, i. The Christian heaven can be seen as a sort of spiritual Utopia.

 j. Simply because a black person is polite to white people doesn' t make him or her guilty of Uncle Tomism.