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Remember soap operas?
There are only a few left in the traditional form, but in addition to evil twins and coming back from the dead, another soap opera trope was amnesia. When considering the orthography of this word, I thought there might be an opportunity to share with you a large etymological family.
In this investigation, you'll find out how uncountable nouns are different than their countable cousins. We will discover what it means for words to belong to the same etymological circle and examine how Modern Latin shaped scientific vocabulary. You'll also see why understanding a word's stem can be helpful in word formation, and learn why syllable division might actually obscure rather than clarify a word's true structure and meaning.
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Meaning
What is this word's meaning and how does the word function?
Those afflicted with amnesia in soap operas forget whole events or swaths of their life only to later recover their memories dramatically from a hospital bed or more likely, in a courtroom. The entry in the Collins dictionary online, my favorite source for student-friendly definitions, simply says someone with amnesia "has lost their memory."
The Collins entry also tells me this is an "uncountable noun." One cannot have * amnesias. We know one of the distinguishing characteristics of the word class of noun is that we can pluralize them. When this is not true, we refer to the noun as "uncountable." Other examples of uncountable nouns include rice and knowledge.
But it's this word's structure that might cause you to "lose your mind." Greek isn't as "clean" when analyzing for the elements in a word sum.
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Structure
What are the elements that make up this word's structure?
The word ends in
amnes + ia
Once I isolated that possible base, I immediately thought of the word amnesty. Perhaps we have a relative. Relatives in the same morphological family have a similarly-spelled base that is derived from the same root.
Finding similar words to attest the elements of a word's structure helps, but we must consult our resources. After all, the words attest and testy are not related although they have similarly-spelled bases. Looks can be deceiving.
Our entry in Etymonline for amnesia tells us this word came into our language in 1786 and then as a Greek word in English from the 1670s. This word is Modern Latin, or Scientific Latin, as it is sometimes known. Given that Latin was a shared language, a lingua franca, among scientists of different nationalities, Latin and Greek elements were often used when naming new species, describing concepts, and categorizing new afflictions during this scientific renaissance.
The entry goes on to tell us that the Greeks used this word for "forgetfulness." The prefix , "not" is adjoined to stem of the verb mnasthai. A stem in linguistics is a part of a word that serves as a foundation for affixing. The word enjoy is a stem to which we can add <-ment>.
Let's break this entry down a little further. The verb mnasthai is "related to" mnemnon, "mindful," and mneme, "memory." This means these words share etymological DNA, not that one comes from the other. We will see how this etymological DNA surfaces among the relatives below.
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Relatives
What are the word's relatives and history?
Within the entry itself, you can see it has a relationship to amnesty, even though they have different spellings of their bases: amnesia, but would exist inside the same etymological circle. Etymological circles contain etymological relatives, words that share a root. Think of amnesia and amnesty as cousins, not siblings.
There are many etymological relatives for this word if we go back all the way to its Proto-Indo-European root which had a sense of "think." We find relatives like dementia, manic, memento, mental, mentor, mnemonic, premonition, reiminiscent, and mind.
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Graphemes
What can the pronunciation of the word teach us about the relationship of its graphemes and its phonology?
If you are new to word investigations, this word is a perfect example of how syllable division can obscure the word's structure, and possibly meaning.
am.ne.sia or am.nes.ia
Syllable division might have been helpful in decoding that first syllable. Closed syllables are said to have short vowel sounds. However, how do we divide that next syllable? Between the vowel and or after the ?
My students often didn't find syllable division of much help. By the time they were through figuring out where to divide that second syllable, they had forgotten the whole point of what they were reading. In addition, the ones who were most successful with syllable division already knew the word and the syllables!
In addition, syllable division with this word obscures that meaningful prefix with its negating sense. This is someone "without" a memory. It also belies the connection to another mnemonic.
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Next Steps
What concepts from this investigation can we explore next to learn more about the English orthographic system?
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You could discuss the different ways we pluralize nouns. When do we use |
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The suffix <-ment> can be added to the stem enjoy, but cannot be added to joy. Therefore joy > enjoy > enjoyment. What other word chains can you find like this? What about the journey to unlockable? |
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Instead of syllable division, teach word sums as a way of investigating how words are formed. |
Each week I provide those word investigations so you don't "forget" the concepts that might be important when investigating why words are spelled the way they are. Some concepts, like prefixes and suffixes, appear frequently. Others, like medial vowel weakening, are only mentioned occasionally. As time goes on, and you and your students practice more, you begin to see which foundational concepts we recite like a mantra ("Looks can be deceiving.") and which we can summon as needed.
Stay curious,
Brad
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PS. Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is a reconstructed language; we have no written records. Linguists have made conjectures about how it may have been spelled using these derivatives, or etymological relatives, to arrive at how the word may have been pronounced and/or spelled. For example, many of the words we listed involve an comparative linguistics.
P.P.S. If you know someone else required to teach "Greek and Latin roots" in their state standards, pass this along to them so they can subscribe.
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