Spanish Learning Resourses

GROUPS OF WORDS:

On the basis of morphemes, words can be classified as follows:

• primitive: No morpheme: pan, coche, leche, mar.
• prefixed:Include a prefix (start of the word): -in,-a,-re,-des

Enterrar: desenterrar: verb
Juicio: prejuicio: noun
Moral: amoral: adjective
In-finito, a-moral, re-hacer, des-hacer

In spanish there are many Latin and Greek prefixes:
a: means privation: afónico.
agro: means countryside: agricultura.
andro: means man: andrógeno.
peri: means outskirts: periferia.
geo: means land: geología.
teo: means God: teología
logo: means word: logopeda

Derivatives: words that want a sufix (end of the word)
mes-illa, panad-ero, bell-eza

Composed:
words composed by more than one word: aguanieves, chupatintas

parasynthetic: formed by composition or derivation: quince-añ-ero

COMPOSITION OF WORDS:
It consists in extending the word through two procedures: composition and derivation

Sacacorchos: it is an instrument for taking out corks.
Verdulero: persoa who sells vegetables.

THE COMPOSITION:

Different procedures are involved in it:

Through a pronominal sintagm: Letra de cambio, conejillo de Indias, silla de ruedas casa de huéspedes, olla a presión.
Formed by a noun or adjective: guardia civil, tinta china, pez espada, guerra civil, pájaro carpintero, sauce llorón.
Combined by an hyphen: coche-cama, catalana-francés, químico-físico.
Formed by two nouns: bocamanga, casatienda, hierbabuena, aguardiente, latinoamericano, pelirrojo.
Formed by a verb and a noun: cascanueces, pasatiempo, malvivir, limpiabotas, abrelatas.

Many different procedures for forming word do exist, as follows:

adv+adj or noun: maleducado.
verb+adv: maleducar, maldecir, malmeter.
abbreviation: d por don, s. por san, dr por doctor, zoo por zoológico, cine por cinematográfico, profe por profesor, bus por autobús.

THE DERIVATION:

Combination of two elements. Some of the procedures are:

• Learned prefixes: biografía, televisión, videojuego, telefónica, fotográfico.
• suffix: adding a morpheme to a lexeme: crear--creación, creador; labrar--labrador, labriego, labranza; humano-- humanidad, humanismo, humanista. it is important to remind that there is also the formation of adverbs ending in -mente: agradable: agradablemente, amable: amablemente, correcto: correctamente.
• Within the group of suffix names and adjectives are formed by connotations: the apreciatives ones, in order to express feelings: traditionally, they are called diminutives (-illo/illa, -ito/ita, -llín: pequeñillo, boquita, mesita, perrito, botellín.)or augmentatives (-azo/aza,-ón/-ona: casaza, perrazo, comilona, tazón.). Some augmentatives have a semantic importance like: feote, feúcho, muchachota, mujerzuela.
• he suffix -ble is formed by starting with beber: bebible, comer: comestible
• interfixed: elements that do not have a gramatical or a significative function. they are in the middle of the word: librito, perrito, carnicero, saltarín.

LA PARASYNTHESIS:
Composition or creation of a word: it contains suffixes and prefixes: antibacteriano, regordete, precocinado.

THE ONOMATOPOEA:
It is the convertion of a sound into a word: kikiriki: canto del gallo, tictac: sonido del reloj....