Strand 2/Morphology - Part 8: Verbal Affixes Follow-Up (an -ate problem)

Beth’s astute students may have noticed when making this fine chart that there were some inconsistencies with the -ate suffixes. I have noted in previous posts that, in general, affixes attach to one part of speech and result in another part of speech. -Ate, however, complicates that claim.

Let’s see what they found. They discovered that -ate attaches to adjectives and results in verbs.

activate: active (A) + ate = activate (V)
validate: valid (A) + ate = validate (V)

Oh, but -ate also seems to attach to nouns to make verbs.

motivate: motive (N) + ate = motivate (V)
originate: origin (N) + ate = originate (V)

And mostly, it seems to attach to non-words (bound roots) to make verbs.

frustrate
dominate
emaciate
integrate
legislate
educate
saturate

And then there are these which are all adjectives, not verbs. And the -ate in this set attaches to nouns (fortune), verbs (consider), and bound roots:

fortunate
considerate
desolate
separate
desperate

Notice the pronunciation of the -ate is different in these, with a reduced, schwa vowel.

So what’s going on? Dictionary.com has this to say about the affix –ate:

a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin. The form originated as a suffix added to a certain class of Latin verbs to form adjectives (fortunate). The resulting word could also be used independently as a nouns (advocate) and came to be used as a stem on which a could be formed (separate, advocate, agitate). In English the use as a verbal suffix has been extended to stems of non-Latin origin: calibrate.

But try to have your students figure out the various patterns first. A rough lesson plan for this is here with some answers provided here. It includes heading to the dictionary to find out more about the history of this suffix. The Online Etymology Dictionary has this to say about -ate:

a word-forming element used in forming nouns from Latin words ending in -atus, -atum (e.g. estate, primate, senate). Those that came to English via Old and Middle French often arrived with -at, but an -e was added after c.1400 to indicate the long vowel.

The suffix also can mark adjectives, formed from Latin past participles in -atus, -ata (e.g. desolate, moderate, separate), again, they often were adopted in Middle English as -at, with an -e appended after c.1400

So, many of those that attach to roots were just a past participial marker on a word, like these (all from Online Etymology Dictionary):

educate: from Latin educatus, past participle of educare "bring up, rear, educate".

confiscate: from Latin confiscatus, past participle of confiscare, from com- "together" (see com-) + fiscus "public treasury," literally "money basket".

saturate: from Latin saturatus, past participle of saturare "to fill full, sate, drench," from satur "sated, full," from PIE root *sa- "to satisfy".

And some are faux suffixes, such as legislate, which is a backformation from legislation.

An investigation of this affix is a good example of why we should trust our instincts and when they tip us off that something is up, we should be prepared to conduct some analysis. That is, when there are differing answers and students express doubt about their choices (about a part of speech or something else), that’s a superb indicator that there is something to be investigated. When Beth’s students were going through this, perhaps they hesitated on labeling the part of speech of valid (which they labeled as a noun) because motive was the word preceding, which they had correctly labeled as a noun. They were working under the assumption that affixes always attach to the same part of speech, so they labeled valid as a noun as well. But I’d bet that there was some hesitation in doing so. And that’s because it’s in fact an adjective, and that, as we’ve seen above, -ate attaches to all kinds of things.

So thanks for the fabulous chart, Beth’s class, and I look forward to seeing your adjective one!

Strand 1/Grammar – Lesson 16: More on Adverbs and Other Modifiers – and Punctuation!

Adverbs can occur in a variety of positions in a sentence. This kind of movability is typical of many modifiers.

She carefully picked up the kitten.
She picked up the kitten carefully.
Carefully, she picked up the kitten.

He often forgets to bring his lunch.
He forgets to bring his lunch often.
Often, he forgets to bring his lunch.

Apparently, someone forgot to close the door.
Someone forgot to close the door, apparently.
Someone apparently forgot to close the door.

Do the different positions of the adverb in each of these examples affect the meaning? If so, how?

As mentioned in lesson 14, the term “adverbial” has been used by some to mean “modify.” Lots of different types of phrases can be modifiers: noun phrases, verb phrases, prepositional phrases, adjective phrases, and whole clauses can modify, providing extra, non-essential information about reason, place, cause, condition, and so on. Some examples of modifiers, of the category Adverb, but also of other categories, are given below.

Hastily, I ate the cookie. - adverb
Guilty, he walked up to the stand. - adjective
That guy looked at him in a meaningful way. - prepositional phrase
We won the game yesterday. - noun
Laughing loudly, we walked into the theater – participial verb phrase
His lips curled in a snarl, the dog backed away. – participial clause

Notice that when these occur at the beginning of the clause, they are set off by commas. In usage guides, such words and phrases are often called “introductory elements,” a vague term if I ever heard one, and to leave out the comma is considered a fairly serious error of writing. The “comma intonation” is marked by a downward intonation and sometimes a slight pause. See what your students think about these beginning-of-the-sentence modifiers and whether they all have intonational distinctions or pauses or both.

Another clue to punctuating such modifiers is, that if it is indeed a modifier and one that can be set off by a comma, it should be able to move around – to the beginning of the sentence, to the end, and sometimes, even, to the middle (like even in this sentence). If it’s not a modifier and is a necessary component of the sentence, it won’t move around so easily.

Note that adjectives in prenominal position – before a noun – cannot move, even though they are modifiers. In fact, there is a fairly strict order of adjectives when there is more than one. Which sounds better – a little brown dog or a brown little dog? Can you explain why? Probably not. When we have more than one adjective, there is an order to them that native speakers of English usually have intuitions about but have a hard time articulating. Generally, the adjective order in English is something like this:

1. quality, opinion, judgment, or attitude – ugly, awful, worse, lovely
2. size – huge, tiny
3. age, temperature – old, cold
4. shape – oval, square, twisted
5. color – red, orange, greenish
6. origin – Norwegian, local
7. material – woven, metallic, plastic

Activity. Pick a noun and pick a determiner (a, the, my, your, etc.), and then put up to seven adjectives in between them to see if they follow this order. (We almost never have that many adjectives in regular speech, so you might want to try three or four – but seven is kind of fun as an extra challenge!) Compare your lists to see if you agree on the adjective orderings.

the ___________, ___________, ___________, ___________, ___________, ___________, ___________, thing


There may be some adjectives that you aren’t sure how to categorize. Discuss with each other to see if you can agree what kind of adjective it might be.

Modifiers allow us to add non-essential but important information to a sentence, and they also give us with a way to combine clauses and make our writing more interesting. Consider the two independent clauses below:

Bo talked quietly to his kitten. He didn’t want to scare it.

Or we can use one of the movable modifiers to combine the two independent clauses into one:

Bo talked quietly to his kitten because he didn’t want to scare it.
Because he didn’t want to scare it, Bo talked quietly to his kitten.

Here are some other examples:

Sue tapped Lou. Lou jumped. Sue tapped Lou and Lou jumped. – combining with and
When Sue tapped Lou, Lou jumped. – combining with a clausal modifier

Movable modifiers therefore provide ways to vary clause structure and sentence style. We can stack up several movable modifiers.

Sue tapped Lou very lightly on her way to her seat.
Sue wanted Lou to know she wasn’t mad at him.
Lou knew that Sue wasn’t mad.

On her way to her seat, Sue tapped Lou, very lightly, because she wanted him to know she wasn’t mad at him, even though Lou probably knew that.

We see movable modifiers in written texts quite frequently, and it may well be the case that they are much more of a feature of written language than of spoken language.

Activity. Combine the following short sentences into a single longer, more complex one, which maintains essentially the same meaning.

The cat chased the rat. The rat was probably scared.
I stood on the deck. It was dusk. I saw the sunset. The sunset was beautiful.
My sister doesn’t like eggs. She eats eggs anyway. They have protein.

Here's this lesson as a doc.

Strand 1/Grammar – Lesson 15: Degree Words

There is a group of words that are sometimes called adverbs which actually are a category distinct from adverb. These degree words (also sometimes called intensifiers) include words like very, so, too, rather, and quite. They serve to express degree of an adjective or adverb.

I ran very quickly. - degree word modifying adverb quickly
They are running so fast. - degree word modifying adverb fast

She is rather happy. - degree word modifying adjective happy.

Notice how adverbs cannot appear in these positions, modifying adverbs or adjectives:

*She is quickly happy.
*They are running happily fast.

There are a few adverbs, mentioned in lesson 14, that can modify adjectives that do not express degree.

She is obviously surprised.
They are probably happy.

Most -ly words that precede adjectives, however, are degree words, not adverbs.

She is incredibly tired.
We are really excited.

Activity: Determine what each of the following italicized words is modifying and whether it is an adverb or degree word.

The chair is significantly damaged.
The student was unexpectedly nervous.
The teacher is visibly frustrated.
The owl is thought to be inherently wise.
The test was incredibly easy.
My friend is overly competitive.
Your room is meticulously neat.
It’s horribly cold outside!
This purse is outrageously expensive.
The cake is sinfully delicious.

When one tries to fit the words of English into eight parts of speech categories, Degree is typically not one of them. Then we’re left confused and doubting our intuitions, which tell us that such words are different from adverbs. They occur in different positions and modify different words. Now, that is very interesting!

Strand 1/Grammar – Lesson 14: Adverbs

Adverbs are an elusive member of the phrasal categories – they’re a bit difficult to define, both in terms of their meaning and their morphology and syntax. One of the main reasons adverbs cause trouble is terminological. That is, some grammarians over the years have used the term “adverbial” to mean “any category or phrase that modifies another,” so that means prepositional phrases or non-essential nouns or infinitival clauses. This is confusing. There is evidence that adverbs have unique morphological and syntactic behavior, enough to justify a unique category, so they deserve that. And if we reserve the term “modify” for anything that is not required by another element, then both terms, adverb and modify, will be more useful. Here is just one example of the many that use the term “adverbial phrase” to mean, circularly, “playing the role of an adverb”. I do not find that this is useful. All sorts of types of phrases can serve as modifiers, so reserve the term adverb for just adverbs.

So if adverbs are not "adverbial phrases," what are they? Generally, adverbs modify, or give extra information about verbs, and they describe manner, time, attitude of the speaker, possibility, or serve to focus certain parts of the sentence.

The kids all ran slowly. (manner)
My mom runs often. (time)
Your friends will hopefully meet you at the airport. (attitude)
We will probably be late for school. (possibility)

They sometimes end in -ly, but not always. They can have no suffix, or they can have suffixes other than -ly, including -wise, -like, -ward, and -ways.

We are eating fast.
They ran too slow.
He wrote on the page sideways.
She walked backwards in the playground.
The baby crawled crablike across the room.

Note that some adverbs have the same form as their related adjectives, which can be a bit tricky when trying to label them. Adjectives, however, do not modify verbs; only adverbs do.

adverb: We ran hard in the race.
adjective: The hard race was almost over.

adverb: Be safe!
adjective: She is a very safe driver.

(Adjectives don’t modify verbs, but they can be complements of verbs, meaning that the adjective is not just extra information, but is needed to “complete” the meaning of the sentence: She is tired. I’ll have a separate post on complements.)

Although the examples above with hard and safe are acceptable, other suffixless adverbs are considered less standard in formal written English. They are usually quite standard in speech, however, and follow the natural rules of language.

We ran slow.
She walks too quick for me.
I think I did good on that test.

Merriam-Webster's video on flat adverbs is pretty good.

Activity: In a book or other text, find examples of adverbs. Do they modify the verb, giving you more information about the manner, time, or purpose? If you think you have an adverb but it doesn’t modify a verb, it may modify the whole sentence. We’ll look at some of these sentence adverbs in a separate post.

Like adjectives, you can indicate comparisons using adverbs with their comparative and superlative forms, either -er/-est or more/less.
(Not all adverbs that take comparative -er can also take superlative -est.)

The runner ran harder during the last mile of the race.
The runner ran fastest during the last mile of the race.

We ate dinner later than usual.
She arrived earliest of all the guests.

My friend runs more frequently than I do.
My friend most often runs in the morning.

Typically, as with adjectives, shorter, one-syllable words take -er and -est and longer, multi-syllabic words take more and most. Adverbs that end in -ly always take -er and -est: more slowly.

Also, as with adjectives, some adverbs have irregular comparative and superlative forms:

Our team played badly/worse/worst at the soccer game.
Our team played well /better/best at the soccer game.

Activity: Some words cannot have comparative and superlative forms. From the following list of adverbs, determine which ones cannot and see if you can come up with a reason why not. For those that can take a comparative form, write whether it is –er or more. Do the same for the superlative forms.

actually, afterwards, almost, always, annually, anxiously, boldly, bravely, briefly, busily, calmly, carefully, carelessly, cautiously, certainly, cheerfully, clearly, continually, courageously, daily, daintily, dearly, defiantly, deliberately, easily, elegantly, energetically, equally, especially, eventually, exactly, excitedly, fairly, faithfully, far, fast, fortunately, frankly, gracefully, immediately, interestingly, knowingly, nervously, often, quietly, seldom, sometimes, soon, surprisingly, suspiciously, sweetly, truthfully, unnaturally, upbeat, vaguely

(The idea is that, like with adjectives, certain adverbs are not gradable, so resist such comparisons. See the post on adjectives.)

Occasionally, adverbs can modify words other than verbs, including nouns:

Only one friend waited for me. (only modifies one friend)

And adverbs can sometimes modify adjectives, though often these will be degree words instead, which we’ll learn about in the next lesson.

She is obviously tired. The cats are clearly happy.

Have fun exploring the poor misunderstood adverb. It is actually quite useful. Writers are sometimes discouraged from using adverbs, especially in fiction writing; examples of such prohibitions are here and here. And though I rarely meet an adverb that should be axed, perhaps your students do use them too abundantly, and now should at least be able to identify them.

Here's a version of this lesson as a doc.