1. Introduction to Vocabulary Construction
So many words!
Adapted by Marcia Timmel from Vocabulary through Morphemes by Susan M. Ebbers
Art by Phillip Martin

2. Why are there so Many Words?
English is a rich but unusually large language. It is full of synonyms - words that mean nearly the same thing . With so many synonyms, we can be selective, picky, precise; we can choose exactly the right word to say exactly what we mean. More than 20 words convey various shades of ‘happy’ including glad, jubilant, content, pleased, and euphoric. At least a dozen words express various ways to ‘walk’ including amble, march, strut, pace, stride, and stroll.

3. glad jubilant content pleased
1. My parents will be ________________________ that I got an A.
2. The cat finished the milk with a _______________ purr.
3. The winner of the lottery let out a _________________ cry!
4. I am _________________ to help my grandmother bake.

4. pace march strut stroll
5. After school I took a ____________________ around the lake.
6. My father began to _______________ by the phone waiting for the call.
7. The school band is learning to ________________ in formation.
8. When Tom won the award he began to _________________ with pride.

5. New words every day
English is expanding because it is used on every continent and because it is a flexible language. It is easy to invent new words, called neologisms. Every day, people coin new words like blog, unfriend, ipod, brunch, muggle, Wikipedia, and readathon. Then there’s supercalifragilistic-expialidocious. According to Walt Disney it means, ‘Something to say when you have nothing to say’ but to children it probably means, ‘I like long silly words!’”

6. Words from All Over !
English adopts words from all over the globe. The expanding English language has absorbed Spanish loanwords like quesadilla, amigo, guitar, and fiesta. In spelling and pronunciation, feast and fiesta are somewhat similar. Fiesta means ‘feast,’ which is a big meal. Word pairs across languages like this are called cognates. English has adopted Chinese and Japanese loanwords including ketchup, tea, china, kowtow, gung-ho, kung fu, tsunami, judo, sushi, tofu, and karate. English has also adopted Arabic and Farsi/Persian loanwords like algebra, bazaar, chess, harem, orange, and sugar. English adopts words from everywhere! Do you know any loanwords?

7. But mostly from Latin, Greek & german.
Even though English assimilates words from the four corners of the earth, it mostly contains Germanic, Latin and Greek words.
Germanic words are usually short and simple: come, heart, shoe, love, blackbird, children.
However, most Latin and Greek words are longer: unpredictable, parliamentary, encouragement, insignificant, biographical, photoelectric.
The Romans spoke Latin, so words made up with Latin roots are called “Romance” languages. French is a Romance language, as is Spanish.
These complex words contain prefixes, suffixes, bases, or roots, called morphemes. To understand complex Latin and Greek words, we study morphemes.

8. Becoming word detectives…
This year we will gradually learn many suffixes, prefixes, and roots. We will use our knowledge to understand unknown words when reading in context. We will become morphologically aware! This will enable us to read, spell, and comprehend more easily. Morphology can be great fun, like solving a puzzle. Let the games begin . . .