Reification and classification require the adaptation of old words to new purposes. Our language enables us to adapt words that are not nouns, like resent, into nouns, like resentment, and to combine words like copper and plate to make new nouns like copperplate. Words like resentment are formed by adding a purely structural element to a stem. Nouns and noun phrases -ment is a purely structural element; it has no function other than to convert resent into a noun. Words like resentment are called derivatives: resentment is ‘derived’ from resent. Words like copperplate are formed by adding two stems together; each part—copper and plate—has a separate existence with a denotation of its own. Words like copperplate are called compounds, and the process of forming such words is called composition. It is not only nouns that can be formed by derivation and composition; but it is convenient to deal with such concepts at this point as they are now relevant. We shall have to refer to them several times in later chapters when dealing with verbs, adjectives, etc. All of the following are derivatives: snowy, adventurous, goodness, equality, organize and assassinate; but only two of them are nouns: goodness and equality. The words are derived from snow, adventure, good, equal, organ and assassin by the addition of an affix. The element to which the affix is added is a stem. Affixes that come after the stem are called suffixes. There are also prefixes, which precede the stems, for example dis- , un- and re- in distrust, unadventurous and reorganize. (See Figures 8 and 9.) Figure 8 As can be seen, some derivatives come from stems that are themselves complex. Thus, unadventurous is derived from adventurous, which is in its turn derived from adventure. Other examples are: musicality, musical, music; professionalism, professional, profession, profess. Of the words listed in Figures 8 and 9 only three are nouns, goodness, equality and distrust (e.g. the goodness of the food, such equality of opportunity, and his distrust of outsiders—the last of these can also serve as a verb (He distrusts outsiders), see p. 48 in Chapter 3.) There are several suffixes, like -ness and -ity, which have the function of turning the word in which they occur into a noun. Other suffixes which signal ‘this word is a noun’ are: -ment (replacement), - ist (humanist), -ation (civilization), -ion (distinction), -y (orthodoxy), -ity (activity). Further examples of compound words are: blue-fly, half-smile, whipping-block, copy-book, witchcraft, turnover, longwinded, understand and long-legged. The last three of these are not nouns, although the rest are. (Exercises 21 and
22 are on p. 34.)