Unit 2 Health and Science
Section I Focus on Prefix (I)
How Roots, Prefixes and Suffixes Build Words
Most English words are made up of smaller elements: roots, prefixes and suffixes. When you meet a new word in your reading process, you can guess the new word by the prefix and suffix because: affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding word-forming or derivational affixes to bases. This process is also known as derivation, by which new words are derived from old or base forms. The words created in this way are called derivatives. According to the positions affixes occupy in words, affixation falls into two subcategories: prefix and suffix. When you know the common ones and how to combine them, you can understand hundreds of different words. The majority of academic vocabulary (and a lot of everyday English) uses Latin roots and affixes (prefixes and suffixes). They are especially useful if you want to study at a university in an English-speaking country or to work with English-speaking colleagues (fellow professionals or business associates).
Think about the Latin root scrib/script, which means to write. When you add prefixes and suffixes to the root, you can create many new words that all have something to do with writing, such as subscriber, scripture, inscribed, description, postscript, prescription, scribbling and unscripted. It's like an 8-for-1 deal: you learn one Latin root, and you get eight words in return. And when you come across a less familiar word like scriptorium, you can recognize the root script, which in turn gives you a head start on understanding the word's meaning and spelling.
From this unit, we are going to learn prefix.
What Is Prefix?
A prefix is a word part added to the beginning of a word to create a new word with a different meaning. Examples: refill, undo, incomplete, precooked. Usually you can predict the meanings of words based on the prefix knowledge and the roots.
Think about the word happy. The prefix un placed in front of the word happy makes a new word with a new meaning—unhappy. The prefix un means not, so it changes the meaning of the word happy to not happy. (un + happy = unhappy)
A prefix is usually added directly to the base word, but sometimes a hyphen is needed. Following are six common rules for adding a hyphen between the prefix and the base word.
Six Rules for Using Hyphens with Prefixes
1) Hyphenate the word when you add a prefix before a proper noun or a numeral.
Examples: un-American, pre-1980, post-war …
2) Hyphenate the word when you add the prefix ex meaning former.
Example: ex-president, ex-wife, ex-husband …
(Do not use a hyphen if ex means out of or away from, as in expel. )
3) Hyphenate after the prefix self.
Examples: self-respect, self-assured, self-control, self-study, self-made …
4) Hyphenate to separate two a's, two i's, or other letter combinations that might cause misreading or mispronunciation.
Examples: ultra-ambitious, anti-intellectual, co-worker
5) A hyphen may be used to separate two e's or two o's to improve readability or prevent mispronunciation.
Examples: co-opt and co-owner vs. coordinate; de-emphasize vs. reenter
(Note that many words with double e's used to be hyphenated as a general rule, as in re-elect, re-establish and pre-existing. However, current style manuals and dictionaries now tend toward "closing" the word except in cases where readability is affected. Both versions are currently accepted and listed in most dictionaries. )
6) A hyphen is sometimes used after the prefix re to prevent misreading or confusion with another word.
Examples: re-cover vs. recover, as in Re-cover the boat when you recover from the flu; re-lay vs. relay, as in Please relay the message that they will re-lay the tiles.
Just introduce some common prefixes here and try to be familiar with them first.
In the following units, we will give you more examples about prefixes. Possessing knowledge of prefixes will help you to guess the meanings of unknown words, which is quite useful in your reading process.
(Adapted from http://www.englishhints.com/prefixes-and-suffixes.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefix and https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/prefixes.htm and https://blog.allaboutlearningpress.com/prefixes/)