Take a look at the words below:

• autoclave (v.)

• head bracelet (n.)

• conversate (v.)

• deBaathification (n.)

• oversuds (v.)

• McDonaldization (n.)

• unwipe (v.)

Have you ever heard these words before? Can you imagine what they mean?

Chances are that you haven’t heard or read them before. Nevertheless, you probably didn’t have much trouble figuring out at least roughly what their meanings might be. Assuming that you know that an autoclave is a device for sterilizing instruments, the verb to autoclave probably means something like ‘to sterilize using an autoclave’. A head bracelet is probably something that goes around one’s head. DeBaathification must have something to do with removing the Baath (the Iraqi political party associated with Saddam Hussein). And so on. You might not know exactly what they mean, but you can make a good guess

The reason you can make educated guesses about these words is that that they follow the rules of word formation in English. Once you know what the base – the central bit of the word – means, you can often figure out everything else. In this chapter, we’re going to look at the most common ways of forming new lexemes in English and in other languages of the world. You’ll learn how to analyze words into their component parts, see how those parts are organized, and how the various parts contribute to their meanings.