COMPOUND WORDS.

Noun Suffixes
-er added to a verb is used for the person who does an activity: writer, worker, singer,... (sometimes
-or, as in actor, sailor, supervisor,...)
-er/-or are also used for things which do a particular job: tin-opener, projector, ...
-er and -ee can contrast with each other, meaning "person who does something" (-er) and "person
who receives or experiences the action" (-ee): employer/employee, ...
-(t)ion is used to make nouns from verbs: communication, pollution, admission, ...
-ist (person) and -ism (activity or ideology): marxist/Marxism, terrorist/terrorism, ...
-ist is also used for people who play musical instruments: pianist, violinist, ...
-al is added to some verbs to make nouns: arrival, refusal, ...
-ness is used to make abstract nouns from adjectives: happiness, goodness, weakness, ...
-ment is used to make abstract nouns from verbs: excitement, enjoyment, ...
-hood is used to make abstract nouns, especially family terms, from nouns: childhood,
brotherhood, ...
-ship is used to make abstract nouns, especially status, from nouns: friendship, membership,
partnership, ...
-(i)ty is used to make abstract nouns from adjectives: honesty, loyalty, ...

Adjective Suffixes
-able/-ible with verbs means "can be done": readable, countable, edible, flexible, ...
-ive is used to make adjectives from verbs: active, passive, ...
-al is used to make adjectives from nouns: brutal, legal, ...
-ous is used to make adjectives from nouns: dangerous, furious, ...
-ful is used to make adjectives from nouns or verbs: hopeful, useful, forgetful, ...
-less is used to make adjectives from nouns or verbs: useless, harmless, cloudless, ...
-ic/-ical is used to make adjectives with nouns: economic/economical, ...
-ish can be added to most common adjectives, ages and times to make them less precise: reddish
hair, she's thirtyish, come about eightish, ...

Verb Suffixes
-ise/-ize makes verbs from adjectives: modernise, industrialise, ...
-ify makes verbs from nouns: electrify, terrify, ...
-en makes verbs from adjectives: shorten, deepen, darken, ...

Adverb suffixes: -ly. Happily, highly.

Prefixes are often used to give adjectives a negative meaning. The most common adjective prefixes
are un-, in- and dis-: uncomfortable, inconvenient, dissimilar, ...
in- becomes im- before a root beginning with 'm' or 'p' (immature, impatient), ir- before a word
beginning with 'r' (irregular) and il- before a word beginning with 'l' (illegal, illiterate).

Compound Nouns
in- does not always have a negative meaning; it often gives the idea of inside or into: internal,
import, ...
1. A compound noun is a fixed expression which is made up of more than one word and functions as
a noun.
They
can be written
as appear/disappear,
two words (tin opener,
address...book, ...), with a hyphen (postun- and dis- can also
form the
opposites
of verbs:
load/unload,
office, ice-cream, ...) or as one word (earring, teapot, ...).
2. Compound
nouns may be COUNTABLE (alarm clock, burglar alarm, heart attack, tea-bag,
Other common prefixes
are:
credit card), UNCOUNTABLE (birth control, junk food, pocket money, food poisoning) or only
used in either
the SINGULAR
race, greenhouse
effect,multi-purpose
sound barrier, death penalty) or the
anti
against
anti-war,
antisocial
multi(armsmany
multi-lingual,
PLURAL (human rights, sunglasses, traffic lights,
kitchen
scissors).
overdo,
ovetired,
auto
of or by oneself autograph, autobiography over
too much
oversleep
bi
two, twice
bicycle,
bilingual
post nouns
after
postwar,
postgraduate
3. A large
number of compound
are based on
phrasal
verbs. Nouns based on phrasal verbs
ex
former
ex-wife,
ex-president
before
pre-listening
are often
informal and are pre
very common
in newspaper
reporting:
out of
extract, exhale
pro
in favour of pro-government
micro small
microwave
pseudo
false
pseudo-intellectual
There was a break-out from
the local
prison (escape)
mini
small
minu-skirt
re depends
again
back
retype,
reread that is put in)
What the computer produces
on /the
input
(information
misunderstand,
semi-detached,
Output
has
increased
thanks
to
new
technology
(productions)
mis
badly/wrongly
semi
half
misbehave
I can easily get you a printout of the report (papersemicircular
on which computer information has been printed)
mono one/single
monologue,
monotonous
submarine
A breakthrough
has beensub
made in under
AIDS researchsubway,
(important
discovery)
There are drawbacks as well
as advantages
(negative
aspects)
under
not enough
underpaid,
undercooked
The outcome wasn't satisfactory (conclusion)
Teachers need feedback from students (comments)
Compound AdjectivesMany of the problems were caused by a breakdown in communications (failure)
A compound adjective is an adjective which is made up of two parts and it is usually written with a
hyphen. The second part of the compound adjective is frequently a present or past participle.
1. A large number of compound adjectives describe personal appearance: curly-haired, blue-eyed,
tight-fitting, ...
2. Another
set of compound adjectives describes a person's character: absent-minded, easy-going,
Compound
Verbs
two-faced, ...
3. Anotherverb
group
compound
where
the second
is a preposition:
an aall-out
A compound
is of
a verb
which adjectives
consists ofare
twothose
words.
Compund
verbs part
are usually
written with
strike
(total),
a
burnt-out
car
(nothing
left
in
it
after
the
fire),
a
broken-down
bus
(it
won't
work),
hyphen. Most compound verbs consist of a noun plus a verb: baby-sit, cross-examine, ice-skate, ...
worn-out shoes (can't be worn anymore), a drive-in movie (you watch from your car), ...
As all verbs, they can be transitive (Do not dry-clean it!) or intransitive (The children ice-skated all
afternoon), and they can inflect in the same way as single-word verb.

EXERCISES:
http://www.xtec.cat/~ogodoy/sac/wordbuilding/exercises.htm