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I was reading a website on the history of ketchup. And then that linked me to the history of mustard. Before I knew it, I had spent some time learning the history of various condiments. Perhaps I'll be ready if it's ever a category on Jeopardy. Or maybe for Thanksgiving dinner in America this week.
Regardless, the word condiment itself had me wondering. Is it <-ent> or <-ment>? If it's the latter, then would
This investigation takes us from the table to an interesting element. Have you heard of a biliteral or uniliteral base? We'll start out by learning about superordinate and subordinate relationships that may enhance your vocabulary instruction. Then we'll look at a derivational suffix and find out more about Latin verbs. We'll end by taking a deeper look at schwa and connecting vowel letters.
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Meaning
What is this word's meaning and how does the word function?
What exactly makes something into a condiment? How does a condiment differ from a sauce, dip, or dressing? Certainly, I do not consider a vinaigrette a condiment. Neither do I consider the cheese sauce on my nachos a condiment. What feature differentiates it from these other categories?
A condiment, if we look at the entry in the Collins Dictionary, is "a substance you add to food when you eat it in order to improve the flavor." They actually include salt and pepper in their definition. If you look at the entry in the Longman Dictionary, it says that it is "a powder or liquid that you use to give a special taste to food." They, too, mention salt. I don't typically think of salt as a condiment.
I decided to look at the Culinary Dictionary put out by What's Cooking America. They define condiments as "a spice, seasoning, or sauce that is used to give relish or to enhance meat or other foods and to gratify the taste." (They even give a sneak peek of the word's origin.)
So this category is broader than I originally thought if it includes seasonings. In semantics, a superordinate term is the broader term, whereas the subordinate term is more specific and falls under the superordinate. For example, if the superordinate term is fruit, then subordinate terms might include apple, banana, and pear.
Here, condiments sound like a superordinate term for the subordinate terms spice, seasoning, and sauce.
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Structure
What are the elements that make up this word's structure?
If I suspect there is an <-ment> suffix on this word, my initial hypothesis looks like this:
condi + ment
It would make sense to have an <-ment> suffix here, because it is a derivational suffix that forms nouns, like agreementand enrichment.
But I've also postulated a
con + di + ment
Or perhaps we have a connecting vowel letter ?
cond + i + ment
Let's turn to Etymonline to find out more.
This word came to us in the mid 15th century, our entry tells us immediately. It is "a pickling fluid" in addition to a seasoning or sauce. It came to us from Old French where it was spelled similarly. As in many cases, the Old French inherited it from Latin condimentum, which comes from a Latin verb condire, "to preserve."
Most Latin verbs have four principal parts. The second principal part is the infinitive. We have an infinitive form in English, but it is written as a phrase beginning with the word to: to rain, to eat, to have. In Latin, it was one word with a suffix. The suffix could be <-are>, <-ere>, or <-ire>. Since these are Latin suffixes, we need to remove the infinitive suffix to obtain our English base. For condire, we remove the <-ire>, and we are left with
There's more going on here though. The entry goes on to say that the -dere, "put." This is a bound form as indicated by the hyphen. If we remove the <-ere> infinitive, we are left with
con + d + i + ment
Instead of the biliteral base I suspected above, it turns out we have a uniliteral base. A biliteral base consists of only two letters; a uniliteral base consists of only one.
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Relatives
What are the word's relatives and history?
My experience scientifically studying words tells me there is another uniliteral base dare, "give." That base gives us date, add, and tradition. I have to be careful not to confuse these words with my base which has the orthographic denotation of "put."
The base -dere, when traced all the way back to its Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root leaves us with many relatives. Many PIE roots are listed in Etymonline, so I click on the link for the PIE root in the entry for condiment. From the PIE root, we have the Greek form tithenai, which gives us hypothesis, thematic, and parentheses. From Latin, we have the verb facere, which is itself a rich source of words like artifact, confection, proficient, and just about any word ending in the element don, which gives us do, deed, and doom.
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Graphemes
What can the pronunciation of the word teach us about the relationship of its graphemes and its phonology?
The connecting vowel letter is unstressed and is pronounced as schwa /ə/. A schwa can be spelled with any vowel grapheme including some vowel digraphs, like the curious. Therefore, it can be challenging sometimes when students spell. Many times a relative elsewhere in the family can give you a clue. For example, in definition, the word define can help you to see that the schwa will be spelled with an .
Here, we can rely on the connecting vowel letter . Many students will misspell a schwa as because it sounds closest to a "short" sound, /ʌ/. Others may spell it with an . They may be influenced by the many words that start with a schwa spelled with like asleep, ahead, and aware. It may also be that this is the same way we often pronounce the word a in connected speech.
However, an is not a Latin connecting vowel. The Latin connecting vowel letters are , vary toggles to in variety. Since a connecting vowel letter would give us a double , variity, the
Since we have no good reason for another connecting vowel letter, the connecting vowel letter, and the schwa, must be spelled with .
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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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A great way to expand vocabulary is to work with superordinate and subordinate terms. Give students a category and have them brainstorm words you can spell and investigate. Such work can also assist with skills like main idea/details. |
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What about a closer look at suffix <-ment>? How does it differ from suffix <-ent>? |
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You could gather a list of words with connecting vowel letters and determine why the |
I love when I find a new uniliteral base. And on top of it, it's homographic with another base as well. (Homographs are spelled the same but may not be pronounced the same.) Just like condiments add flavor and taste to your meal, finding tidbits like this provide the spice that makes both teachers and students hungry for scientific word study.
Stay curious,
Brad
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PS. What was your biggest aha in this investigation? Hit reply and let me know. Know a teacher who'd love discovering that salt is technically a condiment? Or that
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