This 33rd collection of students’ pearls of wisdom, laboriously digitised from hand-written papers, demonstrates once again how students new to the study of language speculate about grammar after having imperfectly absorbed what their teachers think they have taught them.

Test Question—Word Formation

Consider the italicized word in this sentence:

Arguing with bigots is pointless.

1. State the word-formation rule that forms this word.

2. Give two other examples of English words that follow the same rule.

Answers to Question 1

• -less is added to indicate that the referential meaning of the stem does not occur or exist.

• Compositionality.

• The suffix means the lack of the noun’s presence.

• It is a derivitional affix with a transparent meaning.

• -less means without something (the stem).

Answers to Question 2

In alphabetical order: attachment, beginningless, bookmark, breakdown, brotherhood, cloudy, consonantal, clue, commitment, courageous, disappear, dislike, disobey, dreadful, faithful, foolishness, friend, friendly, greedy, handbag, handful, happiness, lovely, meaning, meaningful, mournful, national, point, postgraduate, printable, roomful, seasick, settlement, sharply, sinful, students, teacher, unhappy, unhelpful, use, walkman, washable, yawning.

More to come...

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