The purpose of this chapter is to offer some insight into the structure of
words in Spanish and the meaning of some of their components. This is
done principally through a discussion of suffixes and prefixes that can be
added to base words, and of the ways in which words can be combined.
The objective is to encourage learners of Spanish to think about how words
are constructed, detect common patterns in them and even come to under-
stand the meaning of words they have not previously encountered. What
follows constitutes no more than a guide to some of the issues foreign
learners might consider as their study proceeds.Suffixes
A suffix is a unit that is added to the end of a word to form a new word, for
example to convert ‘care’ into ‘careless’ or ‘careful’:Base word Suffix New wordcama bed -illa camilla stretcher
avispa wasp -ero avispero wasps’ nestWhen a suffix is added to a word, the ending of this word is often modi-
fied in some way. For example, a final vowel may be altered or deleted:
sereno > serenidad. In addition, spelling changes may be necessary
according to the general rules on spelling, e.g. pedazobut pedacito, cerca
but cerquita(see 1.2).29.1