Here are some words that can be formed from each root: act - action, active, activate, actor, actual, react love - loving, loved, lover, beloved, loveable, loveless talk - talking, talkative, talker, talk, untalkative dark - darken, darker, darkness, darkly comfort - comfortable, comforting, discomfort, uncomfortable excite - exciting, excitement, excited, excitation station - stationary, stationery, destation, restation suit - suitable, suitability, unsuitable, suitcase, lawsuit decide - decision, decisive, indecisive, undecided mix - mixture, mixed, mixing, remix

1. AFFIXES: The building
blocks of English

6. Let’s suffer from verbomania!
insane fondness for animals zoomania
morbid craving for poisons toxicomania
obsession with stamp-collecting stampomania
craze for starting fires pyromania
obsession with music musomania
irrational craving for water hydromania
craze for flowers florimania

7. Are you afraid of words?
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia
Fear of long words

8. Let’s suffer from phronemophobia!
fear of heights acro/altophobia
fear of numbers arithmophobia
fear of being alone or of oneself autophobia
fear of books bibliophobia
fear of ugliness cacophobia
fear of meat carnophobia
fear of time chronophobia

9. Let’s suffer from phronemophobia!
fear of computers cyberphobia
fear of dentists dentophobia
fear of confined spaces claustrophobia
fear of sexual love erotophobia
fear of hearing good news euphobia
fear of nudity gymnophobia
fear of words logophobia

10. What is an affix?
An affix is a word element -
a prefix, suffix, or infix - that can be
attached to a base or root to form a
new word.
Noun: affixation
Adjectives: affixable and affixal

11. What is an affix?
Affixes are of two types:
prefixes, occurring before the stem
of a word, and suffixes, occurring
after.
English does not have affixes in
large numbers--about fifty common
prefixes and somewhat fewer
common suffixes.

12. What is an affix?
Prefixes include dis-, mal-,
ex-, and semi-, as in disinterested,
malformed, ex-husband, and semi-
detached. Suffixes include -ship,
-ness, -ette, and -let, as in hardship,
goodness, kitchenette, and booklet.

13. What is an affix?
Clusters of affixes can be used to
build up complex words:
nation, national, nationalize,
nationalization
denationalization,
antidenationalization

14. Some Common Greek and Latin roots:
Root (source) Meaning English words
aster, astr (G) star astronomy, astrology
audi (L) to hear audible, auditorium
bene (L) good, well benefit, benevolent
bio (G) life biology, autobiography
dic, dict (L) to speak dictionary, dictator

15. Some Common Greek and Latin roots:
Root (source) Meaning English words
fer (L) to carry transfer, referral
fix (L) to fasten fix, suffix, affix
geo (G) earth geography, geology
log, logue (G) word, monolog(ue), astrology,
thought, biology, neologism
speech
luc (L) light lucid, translucent

16. Some Common Greek and Latin roots:
Root (source) Meaning English words
manu (L) hand manual, manuscript
meter, metr
measure metric, thermometer
(G)
pathetic, sympathy,
path (G) feeling
empathy
body,
phys (G) physical, physics
nature
scrib, script (L) to write scribble, manuscript

17. Some Common Greek and Latin roots:
Root (source) Meaning English words
tele (G) far off telephone, television
ter, terr (L) earth territory, extraterrestrial
vac (L) empty vacant, vacuum, evacuate
verb (L) word verbal, verbose
vid, vis (L) to see video, vision, television

18. What is an affix?
“Over half the words in English are
there because of processes of this
kind (i.e., affixation). And this is
one reason why children's
vocabulary grows so quickly once
they learn some prefixes and
suffixes."
(David Crystal, How Language
Works. Overlook, 2006)

19. Prefixes showing quantity
Meaning Prefixes in English Words
half semiannual, hemisphere
one unicycle, monarchy, monorail
two binary, bimonthly, dilemma, dichotomy
hundred century, centimeter, hectoliter
thousand millimeter, kilometer

20. Prefixes showing negation
without, no, not asexual, anonymous, illegal, immoral,
invalid,irreverent, unskilled
not, absence of, nonbreakable, antacid, antipathy,
opposing, against contradict
opposite to, counterclockwise, counterweight
complement to
do the opposite of, dehorn, devitalize, devalue
remove, reduce
do the opposite of, disestablish, disarm
deprive of
wrongly, bad misjudge, misdeed

21. Prefixes showing direction or position
above, over supervise, supererogatory
across, over transport, translate
below, under infrasonic, infrastructure, subterranean,
hypodermic
in front of proceed, prefix
behind recede
out of erupt, explicit, ecstasy
into injection, immerse, encourage, empower
around circumnavigate, perimeter
with coexist, colloquy, communicate, consequence,
correspond, sympathy, synchronize

22. Suffixes, on the other hand, modify the
meaning of a word and frequently
determine its function within a sentence.
Take the noun nation, for example. With
suffixes, the word becomes the
adjective national, the adverb nationally,
and the verb nationalize.

23. Typical noun suffixes are -ence, -ance,
-or, -er, -ment, -list, -ism, -ship, -ency,
-sion, -tion, -ness, -hood, -dom.
Typical verb suffixes are -en, -ify, -ize,
-ate.

24. Typical adjective suffixes are -able, -ible,
-al, -tial, -tic, -ly, -ful, -ous, -tive, -less,
-ish, -ulent.
The adverb suffix is -ly (although not all
words that end in -ly are adverbs—like
friendly).

25. The “infix”
A word element (a type of affix)
that can be inserted within the base
form of a word (rather than at its
beginning or end) to create a new
word or intensify meaning. The
process of inserting an infix is
called infixation.

26. The “infix”
Examples and observations:
"Abso-Bleedin'-Lutely"
(Quincy Jones, song in the
film Walk, Don't Run, 1966)
Absobloodylutely

27. The “infix”
Examples and observations:
Infixes work in fortuitous or aggravating
circumstances by emotionally aroused
English speakers:
Hallebloodylujah! . . . In the movie Wish
You Were Here, the main character
expresses her aggravation (at another
character's trying to contact her) by
screaming Tell him I've gone to
Singabloodypore!

28. The “infix”
Examples and observations:
"English has no true infixes, but
the plural suffix -s behaves
something like an infix in unusual
plurals like passers-
by and mothers-in-law."
(R.L. Trask, The Penguin Dictionary
of English Grammar, 2000)

29. The “infix”
Examples and observations:
Fanflamingtastic
Unbeflippinglievable
Fanfrigginstastic
Absobloominlutely

30. Exercises - Affixes
A man's useless
tuxedo could be
__________ into a
woman's smart
town suit. (form)

31. Exercises - Affixes
In Garner's case, the
formal elements often go
unnoticed because they
are __________ and
made almost invisible by
the emotional power and
urgency of the story.
(merge)

32. Exercises - Affixes
Eduardo Duhalde,
Argentina's caretaker
president, today said that
he would __________ the
peso as he prepared to
unveil a high-risk plan to
end the country's economic
turmoil. (value)

33. Exercises - Affixes
The Maya priests
discovered, however,
that they had slightly
__________ the
average synodic
period of Venus.
(estimate)

34. Exercises - Affixes
Of themselves, of
course, the rules are
normative, and their
validity is thus
__________ by issues
of fact. (affect)

35. Exercises - Affixes
There remained a
distinctive philosophy
of liberalism which
could __________ the
Liberals from other
political parties.
(differ)

36. Exercises - Affixes
In a black leather
notebook __________
with a metal clasp,
he wrote: Oswestry
July 18th 1829... (fast)

37. Exercises - Affixes
The only miracle left in the
nuclear dream is that more
people have not __________
to the fact that nuclear power
is economically - and
increasingly, in that it takes
much-needed funds away
from renewables and
efficiency - ethically,
redundant. (wake)

38. Exercises - Affixes
Frederick's reforms,
however, __________ a
major flaw in the
progressive infatuation
with scientific
management.
(example)

39. Exercises - Affixes
Drugs which are rapidly
inactivated have
advantages, because the
risk of __________ is
minimized and there are
no cumulative effects.
(dosage)

40. Exercises - Affixes
Sections of the population
have also combined their own
popular nationalism and
religion with aspects of the
clerical interpretation already
invested in the law,
particularly in the __________
movement of the early 1980s.
(abortion)

41. Exercises - Affixes
Any technical term used
here, whether from
__________ or
anthropology, is explained
in the body of the text, and
the index will enable the
reader to refer back to
these explanation. (Marx)

42. Exercises - Affixes
The best cure in such
a case is an
__________ of the
law by statute. (alter)

43. Exercises - Affixes
He not only uses
__________ images to
achieve rhythm but, even
more subtly, uses
__________ ideas for the
same purpose. (repeat)

44. Exercises - Affixes
The integral involves
two __________
functions. (continue)

45. Exercises - Affixes
It is remarkable that a
cell as overtly dull and
__________ as the
fertilized egg can give
rise to such varied and
complex forms.
(structure)

46. Exercises - Affixes
Even in the university
centers, perhaps only 50
per cent of cases are
notified, while
reporting from private
practitioners is
__________. (existent)

47. Exercises - Affixes
__________ resources
that took aeons to
constitute are
squandered in an instant,
according to the "laws"
of supply and demand.
(replaceable)

48. Exercises - Affixes
I try not to go to the
supermarket at 5pm
because it's
__________________.
(practice)

49. Exercises - Affixes
He was accused of
__________________
documents. (false)

50. Exercises - Affixes
You shouldn't have
done that! It was
very
__________________
of you. (think)

51. Exercises - Affixes
They had to
__________________
the lion before they
could catch it.
(tranquil)

52. Exercises - Affixes
How many words can you “grow”
from each root?
act love
talk dark
comfort excite
station suit
decide mix