Living in fear 4A

WORD BUILDING
 Adjectives

Adjectives are typically created from nouns by adding suffixes

and/or prefixes.
Some positive adjectives are formed by using the suffixes –ful,
ous/-ious, -y, -able/-ible, -al, -ic, -ive.
Some negative adjectives are made by using either the suffix –less,
or the prefixes un-, in-, im-, il-, ir-, dis-, non-
The suffixes –ful, -less, -able and –y (if the noun ends with an e,
the “e” is dropped: ice-icy ) are added directly to the original nouns.
! Anxiety loses its –ety ending, caution loses its –on ending. The
suffix –ful has only one “L” not two! ”y” before –ful is replaced with
an “i” (beauty – beautiful), before –ous/-ious “y” is dropped
(mystery – mysterious).
 * The negative adjectives for anxious, risky, cautious are different words (carefree, safe, reckless)
rather than ones built from the same starting point .

Noun adjective Negative adjective

Fear Fearful Fearless
Anxiety Anxious *Unanxious
Risk Risky *Riskless
Reason Reasonable Unreasonable
Caution Cautious *Incautious
Harm Harmful Harmless
* Items in brackets are relatively uncommon.

Noun Adjective Negative adjective

Worry Worried Unworried
Anger Angry ----------------
Surprise Surprising/ Surprised (Unsurprised)/
Unsurprising
Hope Hopeful Hopeless
Beauty Beautiful --------------------
Pain Painful Painless
Sadness Sad --------------------
Excitement Exciting/ Excited Unexciting / (Unexcited)
Brains Brainy (Brainless)
Thank you!