English Morphology and Lexicology (2019) – Group A
Classroom activities
UNIT 3. WORD FORMATION PROCESSES IN ENGLISH
Part 1. A Word and its parts: Inflection
Practice
Exercise 1
In each of the following group of word forms, identify those that are (or can be, according to
context) forms of the same lexeme:
(a) woman, woman’s, women, womanly, girl
(b) greenish, greener, green, greens
(c) written, wrote, writer, rewrites, writing
Exercise 2
What word forms represent each of the following grammatical words?
(a) The plural of GOOSE GEESE
(b) The past tense of PLAY PLAYED
(c) The past tense of lay laid
(d) The past tense of lie (‘rest horizontally’) lay
(e) The past tense of lie (‘not tell the truth’) lied
(f) The past participle of DIVE DIVED
(g) The past participle of GLIDE GLIDED
(h) The past participle of STRIDE STRODE
(i) The third person singular of BE IS
(j) The accusative of the pronoun YOU YOU
(k) The accusative of the pronoun WE US
Which of the forms above are irregular? Are any of them suppletive?
A, C, D, H, I, K are irregular and also suppletive at the same time.
Exercise 3
The superlative suffix -est is limited to single syllable adjectives. Some of the following adjectives
show that this is an oversimplification. Which ones?
GENTLE COMMON PRECISE REMOTE
COMMONEST REMOTEST
Department of English and German Studies - SM
