Pronunciation Survey

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Compound Words Made of a Root & More Than One Prefix or Suffix

Compound Words Made of a Root & More Than One Prefix or Suffix

Some compound words are made of a root (stem) and more than one prefix or suffix.

A compound adjective is an adjective made of two or more morphemes. A compound noun is a noun made of two or more morphemes. Examples:

1 NOUN childishness = ADJECTIVE childish + NOUN SUFFIX -ness

childishness (morphological tree diagram)

childishness -- [COMPOUND-NOUN [childishness [COMPOUND-ADJECTIVE [childish[NOUN child] [N-SUFFIX -ish]]] [ADJ-SUFFIX -ness]]].png

Making Compound Words with Suffixes

Suffixes are bound morphemes. They are parts of words which go at the end of another morpheme, usually a free morpheme (an independent word) to make a new, compound word (= a word made of two or more parts).

Suffixes can change the lexical categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) of the words they go with. Here are six free morphemes:

NOUNS: child, color

ADJECTIVES: happy, stupid

VERBS: employ, stop

And here are six suffixes (bound morphemes):

NOUN SUFFIXES go with nouns: -ish, -ful

ADJECTIVE SUFFIXES go with adjectives: -ness, -ity

VERB SUFFIXES go with verbs: -er, -able

When we put these together, we get new compound words.

1 The noun child + the noun suffix -ish make an adjective: childish

childish (morphological tree diagram)

Free Morphemes and Bound Morphemes

A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning (語素 = 最小的語義單位). In Chinese, each character (漢字 = 書寫單位) usually represents one morpheme (one basic meaning), such as 我家很遠woo jia heen yeuan (my home is far away).

There are two kinds of morphemes, free morphemes (independent words) and bound morphemes (parts of words; these parts cannot be used alone). In 我家很遠(woo jia heen yeuan), the three underlined characters represent free morphemes.

很 heen- is a bound morpheme because it is not used alone. Look at this dialog [In linguistics, * means that an example is wrong]:

        Q: 你喜歡我嗎? (Do you like me? Very Very like)

        A: *很 OR *很喜 (*Very OR *Very like [very common mistake])

These are strange answers, aren't they? If somebody asks you: 你喜歡我嗎? (Nii shiihuan woo .ma), you cannot answer 很 heen or 很喜 hen shii because 很and 喜 are bound morphemes. 

How about:

        Q: 你喜歡我嗎? (Do you like me?)

        A: 很喜歡 (Yes, I like you very much)

很喜歡 is a good answer because you have bound morphemes used with free morphemes.

In Chinese, each character is usually one morpheme, but morphemes are not words. In English, many short words, such as black (= a color), dog (= an animal) and ever (= at any time) are also made of only one morpheme, but blacker, dogs and never are each made of two morphemes:

blacker = black + -er,

dogs = dog + -s,

never = n- (not) + ever.

The underlined morphemes are free morphemes. The morphemes in red are bound morphemes. 

Adding Pictures to Your Mindmap (Blumind)

Learning is hard work, but mindmapping can make it easier. Imagine you are learning geography and you want to learn the names of countries near China. A simple list is boring and not easy to remember:

China's Neighbors (NES): India, Japan,Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, North Korea, The Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam

An outline with details is a little better, but not good enough:

China's Neighbors (NES):
I India
Birthplace of Hinduism
Muslim Separatism
II Russia
Formerly Communist
Largest Country in the World
III Vietnam
Buddhist & Catholic
Fiercely Independent

Better: A mindmap with pictures
What's a better way? Make a mind map and make it look more interesting!

Here is a mind map with small pictures showing China's neighbors to the North, East and South. This mind map is not complete: it is just a sample.

Here is how to make your own mind maps: