Words change meaning over time. Some terms that used to have one meaning fifty years ago have developed very different meanings now. Often, slang terms are among those quickest to change, and we can see this in examples such as sick, wicked and gay, all of which have undergone fairly substantial shifts in meaning over relatively short periods of time.
Compounds are combinations of root words, i.e. words that can occur on their own, to form a new established combination. They are sometimes spelt as one word, but also with a hyphen or as two words.
In English compound nouns, e.g. bookcase, laptop, smartphone, and compound adjectives, e.g. dripping wet, tax-free, are very common.
An interactive activity to explore how compounds are made
In this activity, students work with an interactive smart board display to build compound words.
The Activity pages for this starter can be found in the menu entitled 'This Unit' in the upper right corner of this page. Each Activity page contains slides that can be displayed using a projector or smart board.
In this lesson, students explore word morphology. Morphology is an area of language study concerned with how words are
formed. While syntax is about the larger structures formed when words
are put together, morphology is about the structure within words.
