Grammar page 4

Word formation of adjectives

An adjective can describe a person, animal, place, thing or tell the number or quantity of the noun.

An adjective can be a single word (like exciting, amusing) or a compound(hard-working, self-centered) that actually modifies the noun. The different kinds of adjectives define the noun, verb or sometimes even other adjectives.

Suffixes to form adjectives

Suffixes go on the end of words. They change a word from one part of speech, such as a noun or a verb, to another, such as an adjective. 

For example, if you add ‘-able’ to ‘solve’, you create the adjective ‘solvable’.  

• They told me the problem was not solvable, but I thought it was easy.
• The professional secretary was very helpful. She immediately understood what I needed.

The word ‘professional’ comes from ‘profession’, and ‘helpful’ comes from ‘help’.

The most common adjective suffixes and their meaning:

Suffix	Meaning	Examples
-able/-ible	Worth, ability	Solvable, accessible, believable, reliable
-al, -ial, -ical	Quality, relation	Professional, structural, national, legal
-ent/-ant	Having a certain quality	Important, dependent, relevant
-ed	Having the quality of	Bored, interested, fascinated
-ic	Quality, relation	Generic, archaic, idealistic, historic
-ing	Referring to an activity	Boring, interesting, fascinating
-ish	Having the character of, about, almost	Newish, reddish
-ful	Having a characteristic	Helpful, colorful, useful
-less	Without, missing	Worthless, careless, useless, hopeless
-ous	Having the quality of, relating to	Adventurous, courageous, advantageous
-ive	Having the quality of	Festive, cooperative, sensitive

Thus, suffixes can determine the word’s part of speech. Certain suffixes make the base or root word a noun, a verb, an adjective, or an adverb. For example, if you know suffixes that are typical for adjectives you will easily differentiate the adjectives from other parts of speech or determine the meaning of a word:

• history (noun) – historic (adjective)
• hopeful (giving hope) – hopeless (without hope)

ATTENTION: Some words can be two parts of speech. This is true for words that end in ‘-ed’ and ‘-ing’, such as ‘bored‘ and ‘boring‘. In the first and third sentences below, the words are verbs, while in the others they are adjectives. In the second sentence, ‘bored’ describes the person ´I´, and in the last sentence ‘boring’ describes the word ´subject´.

Prefixes to form adjectives

Prefixes go at the beginning of words.

The most common adjective prefixes and their meaning:

Prefix	Meaning	Examples
il-, im-, ir-, in-	Not/opposite of	Illegal, Illegible, imperfect, impolite, irrelevant, irrational, inconvenient, inactive
un-	Not/opposite of	Unusual, unhappy, uninterested, unpleasant
dis-	Not/opposite of	Dishonest, disloyal, dissimilar, disabled
ultra-, super-, -hyper-	Extreme	Ultra-compact, ultrasound, hyperactive
inter-	Between	International, interdisciplinary
trans-	Across	Transatlantic, transmarine

Spelling rules for il-, im-, ir-, in- 

1. Use ‘il-’ for words starting with ‘l’, such as legal (illegal) and legible (illegible).
2. Use ‘ir-’ for words starting with ‘r’, such as relevant (irrelevant) and rational (irrational).  
3. Use ‘im-’ for words starting with ‘m’ or ‘p’, such as mature (immature) and polite (impolite). 
4. For other adjectives, use ‘in-’, such as convenient (inconvenient) and active (inactive).

ATTENTION: Not all prefixes can go on all words, so it is important to use your dictionary to help you learn which prefixes are used with which words.

Here is the link to watch some video.

Links for practice:

1.https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/word_formation/nouns_adjectives/index.php

2.https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/opposites_adjectives/index.php

3.https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/structures/opposites_adjectives.htm

4.https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/structures/opposites_adjectives_2.htm

5.https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/structures/opposites_adjectives_3.htm

6.https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/structures/opposites_adjectives_4.htm

7.https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/structures/opposites_adjectives_5.htm

8.https://www.grammarbank.com/word-formation.html

9.https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/forming-adjectives/

10.https://english.lingolia.com/en/grammar/adjectives/making-adjectives/exercises