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)