HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A word family is the base form of a word plus its inflected forms and derived forms made with suffixes and prefixes plus its
cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical ef ...
s, i.e. all words that have a common
etymological Etymology () The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the form of words a ...
origin, some of which even native speakers don't recognize as being related (e.g. "wrought (iron)" and "work(ed)"). In the
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
language,
inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
al affixes include third person -''s'', verbal ''
-ed Verbs constitute one of the main parts of speech (word classes) in the English language. Like other types of words in the language, English verbs are not heavily inflected. Most combinations of tense, aspect, mood and voice are expressed peri ...
'' and ''
-ing ''-ing'' is a suffix used to make one of the inflected forms of English verbs. This verb form is used as a present participle, as a gerund, and sometimes as an independent noun or adjective. The suffix is also found in certain words like ''morn ...
'', plural -''s'',
possessive A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ow ...
-''s'',
comparative general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as well ...
-''er'' and
superlative Comparison is a feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe. In languages ...
-''est''. Derivational affixes include -''able, -er, -ish, -less, -ly, -ness, -th, -y, non-, un-, -al, -ation, -ess, -ful, -ism, -ist, -ity, -ize/-ise, -ment, in-''. The idea is that a base word and its inflected forms support the same core meaning, and can be considered learned words if a learner knows both the
base word A root (or root word) is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a prefix or a suffix can attach. The root word is the prim ...
and the affix. Bauer and
Nation A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by th ...
proposed seven levels of affixes based on their frequency in English. It has been shown that word families can assist with deriving related words via affixes, along with decreasing the time needed to derive and recognize such words.


Effects on learning

There are several studies that suggest that knowledge of
root word A root (or root word) is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a prefix or a suffix can attach. The root word is the prima ...
s and their derivatives can assist with learning or even deducing the meaning of other members of a word family. A study from Carlisle and Katz (2006) comparing separate English word families varying in size, frequency, and
affirmation and negation In linguistics and grammar, affirmation (abbreviated ) and negation () are ways in which grammar encodes positive and negative polarity into verb phrases, clauses, or other utterances. An affirmative (positive) form is used to express the valid ...
suggests that “accuracy of reading derived words by 4th and 6th graders is related to measures of familiarity, ... base word frequencies, family size, average family frequency, and
word length In computing, a word is the natural unit of data used by a particular processor design. A word is a fixed-sized datum handled as a unit by the instruction set or the hardware of the processor. The number of bits or digits in a word (the ''word s ...
”. It was found that families that were either larger or more frequent (i.e. word families that had more words or were more common) were more quickly read. Nagy et al. (1989) found that morphologically related families had an increase of reaction time of up to 7 ms compared to those without a morphological relation. Nagy et al. (1993) summarizes how knowledge of the meanings of common English suffixes underwent significant development between fourth grade and high school.


Studies on non-native speakers

There have also been studies on non-native English speakers and learners on their knowledge and understanding of word families. A study of nonnative-English-speaking college students showed that non-native English speakers knew at least some of the four word forms studied (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs). Out of these four, word families derived from nouns and verbs were found to be the most well-known. Results showed that in regards to these word forms, ESL students knew the least, MA-ELT (English Language Teaching) students knew more, and native speakers knew the most. In addition, a study of Japanese students learning English showed poor knowledge of the affixes studied, showing a division between their knowledge of a word's meaning and a derivative form of a separate word (e.g. ''stimulate'' versus ''similar'', ''disclose'' and ''far''). To conclude their study, Schmitt and Zimmerman have provided the following for those teaching word families as a guideline: * Introduce derivatives along with their roots. * Teach more affixes. * Emphasize adverbs, adjectives, and their derivatives. * Suggest reading that includes these word families.


See also

*
Headword In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (plural ''lemmas'' or ''lemmata'') is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, ''break'', ''breaks'', ''broke'', ''broken'' and ''breaking'' ...
(lemma) *
Lexeme A lexeme () is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection. It is a basic abstract unit of meaning, a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of forms take ...


References

{{Reflist English grammar Lexicography Language