![]() ![]() For people who want to master a new language, learning root words is beneficial in different ways. Root words, especially those from other languages, tell us a lot about how a language evolved, how it is related to other languages, and what major historical influences caused it to change. Root words don’t have to be simple or obvious at all, but they are still well worth studying and learning. In fact, it comes from Latin “jec,” which was a form of the verb “jacere” (to throw). We can see that “ject” has something to do with throwing things. Those words can mean, respectively, throw away, throw out, and throw in between. ![]() We see it in reject, eject, and interject. In fact, a lot of them come from Latin and Greek, and if you saw them without an affix, you might have a hard time guessing what they mean. ![]() However, not all root words are of English origin. We used the root word “friend” as an example because it’s an English word that is very easy to understand. Prefixes and suffixes are collectively known as affixes, and they can be added simultaneously to a root word, as in “unfriendliness.” Are Root Words Really That Simple?Īctually, they are not. We call an element we add to the end of a root word a suffix. We can also add elements to the end of a root word, as we did with “friendly.” The element “ly” changes the word “friend” into an adjective. So, from the noun “friend,” we get a verb, “to befriend,” which means to make someone a friend. We create the new word by adding the element “be.” “Be” is used as a prefix, an element added in front of a root word to change or expand its meaning, and sometimes even create a new word of a different class. The word “befriend” is made by adding “be” to the word “friend.” “Friend” is the root word here because it is the word we use as the base for creating a new word. Let’s take a look at three of the words based on the word “friend”: befriend, friendly, and unfriendliness. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |