A word family is the base form of a word plus its inflected forms and derived forms made with
suffixes and prefixes plus its
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language.
Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...
s, i.e. all words that have a common
etymological origin, some of which even native speakers don't recognize as being related (e.g. "wrought (iron)" and "work(ed)"). In the
English language,
inflection
In linguistic Morphology (linguistics), morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical category, grammatical categories such as grammatical tense, ...
al affixes include third person -''s'',
verbal ''
-ed'' and ''
-ing
''-ing'' is a suffix used to make one of the inflection, inflected forms of English verbs. This verb form is used as a present participle, as a gerund, and sometimes as an independent noun or adjective. The suffix is also found in certain words ...
'', plural -''s'',
possessive -''s'',
comparative -''er'' and
superlative -''est''.
Derivational affixes include -''able, -er, -ish, -less, -ly, -ness, -th, -y, non-, un-, -al, -ation, -ess, -ful, -ism, -ist, -ity, -ize/-ise, -ment, in-''.
The idea is that a base word and its inflected forms support the same core meaning, and can be considered learned words if a learner knows both the
base word and the affix.
Bauer and
Nation
A nation is a type of social organization where a collective Identity (social science), identity, a national identity, has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, t ...
proposed seven levels of affixes based on their frequency in English. It has been shown that word families can assist with deriving related words via affixes, along with decreasing the time needed to derive and recognize such words.
Effects on learning
There are several studies that suggest that knowledge of
root words and their derivatives can assist with learning or even deducing the meaning of other members of a word family. A study from Carlisle and Katz (2006) comparing separate English word families varying in size, frequency, and
affirmation and negation suggests that “accuracy of reading derived words by 4th and 6th graders is related to measures of familiarity, ... base word frequencies, family size, average family frequency, and
word length”.
It was found that families that were either larger or more frequent (i.e. word families that had more words or were more common) were more quickly read.
Nagy et al. (1989) found that
morphologically related families had an increase of reaction time of up to 7 ms compared to those without a morphological relation.
Nagy et al. (1993) summarizes how knowledge of the meanings of common English suffixes underwent significant development between fourth grade and high school.
Studies on non-native speakers
There have also been studies on non-native English speakers and learners on their knowledge and understanding of word families. A study of nonnative-English-speaking college students showed that non-native English speakers knew at least some of the four word forms studied (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs).
Out of these four, word families derived from nouns and verbs were found to be the most well-known.
Results showed that in regards to these word forms,
ESL students knew the least,
MA-ELT (English Language Teaching) students knew more, and
native speakers knew the most.
In addition, a study of Japanese students learning English showed poor knowledge of the affixes studied, showing a division between their knowledge of a word's meaning and a derivative form of a separate word (e.g. ''stimulate'' versus ''similar'', ''disclose'' and ''far'').
To conclude their study, Schmitt and Zimmerman have provided the following for those teaching word families as a guideline:
* Introduce derivatives along with their roots.
* Teach more affixes.
* Emphasize adverbs, adjectives, and their derivatives.
* Suggest reading that includes these word families.
See also
*
Headword (lemma)
*
Lexeme
A lexeme () is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection. It is a basic abstract unit of meaning, a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of forms ta ...
References
{{Reflist
English grammar
Lexicography
Language