4. Building your vocabulary: word families

As some of the previous exercises already showed, a corpus can be a great tool for learning new words, especially in the academic domain. In this section are presented some of the search options which can be used for building your vocabulary in a systematic way. The information concerning word families and different types of affixes should enable you to make use of the creative qualities of English.

A word family usually includes all the inflected words derived from a single base word. The most familiar to you are probably verb forms related to a verb, such as create, creates, created, creating. Often the list can be extended with one or more nouns, adjectives and adverbs and the group may be developed with the help of prefixes and suffixes.

WARM-UP. Looking up words with the same ending.

As you already know, the BNC/COCA can be used for looking up individual words, word classes (POS) and their combinations. In this chapter we'll make use of the wildcard function (*), and base our search on parts of words.

Go to the corpus interface, type *ly in the search string box and click the Search button. Take a look at the listed search results and click them to access the KWIC-lists and see how they are used. Consider the following questions:

• What sort of words do you find?
• What part of speech do they mainly represent (e.g. verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs)?

• add a POS-tag adj.ALL from the POS-LIST
• Replace the space between the search string and the tag with a dot. You should now have *ly.[aj*] as the search string.
• Click Search to get a list of adjectives that end with -ly.
• Click on the listed items to get a KWIC list and see them in context.

Good to know !
The BYU corpus interface has two options for wildcards, the ? for single letters and * for any number of letters. For example, the string b?tter yields search results such as better, bitter, batter and butter, whereas *tter gives you anything from matter to neurotransmitter.

A. Common word families in academic English

Some word families are large, for example interpret has 20 members in its family. Others are small: words such as behalf, furthermore and albeit are the only members in their families. Understanding the way in which new words are constructed helps you to build your vocabulary on the basis of the words that you already know.

Try it yourself!
To develop your knowledge on the way words are constructed, go to the corpus and look up the words that derive from the following roots, which all can be frequently found in the academic vocabulary:

Search tip!
Notice that you have to search with the stem of the word and add the wildcard * before and after it. For example, type *analys* in the search string box and click Search.

• analyse
• estimate
• identify
• occur

Take a careful look at the search results. Are there words that were not previously known to you? Do some of the words strike you as interesting or strange? Can you conclude their meaning from the context in which they are used?

B. Prefixes and suffixes

A common trait of Academic English is that it makes use of affixes to form new words. As was stated just above, prefixes are added to the front of the stem (the base) (like dislike), whereas suffixes are added to the end of the stem (active activate). Prefixes usually add to or change the meaning of the base word, whereas suffixes often change the class of the word.

Click the links and take a moment to examine the most common prefixes and suffixes in academic English.

Notice the following issues

• for verbs, the most common affix in academic English is -ise
• the most common prefixes used to form new verbs in academic English are: re-, dis-, over-, un-, mis-, out-
• nouns can take a variety of affixes, and are probably the most productive class of words
• the most common noun affix in academic English is -tion
• many adjectives are formed from a base of a different class (noun, verb) with a suffix, e.g. -less, -ous

Important! Formal written English tends to use more nouns than verbs, for example expression instead of express, development instead of develop, and treatment instead of treat. These nouns are often combined with prepositional structures introduced by of:

• judgement of outcomes
• treatment of children
• development of thought

Try it yourself!
With the help of the corpus, answer the following questions. You may copy/paste the search strings. Then click Bernie for feedback.

• What verbs start with pre* ? - search with pre*.[v*]
• Which adjectives carry the ending *less? What do they have in common? -use the string *less.[aj*]
• Find verbs that carry the prefix dis*? What is the meaning of the prefix? - string dis*.[v*]

C. Find the appropriate members of word families

Below you see a text extract in which some of the words are missing, you can see only the word family from which they derive. Your task is to find the appropriate members of the word families and type them in the indicated textfields under the piece of text. Remember what you have learned about word families and BNC/COCA search options, and use the corpus when you can't come to think of the right answer by yourself. You'll get feedback about your answer and search tips when you click outside the text area.

How children actually learn to behave according to their sex is highly (1. controversy). Structures of the brain, (2. hormon) factors and even anatomical differences all (3. certain) play a role in the process, but research results are (4. conclude) considering the extent and quality of their effects. Many studies indicate that the gender identity is to a great extent (5. depend) on the rearing, and that the social and (6. cognition) factors play a more important role than the biological in the (7. develop) of (8. person).

That was it about word families for now, move on to the final chapter in this section, to learn more about academic English in Mind the register.