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Sometimes it's the common words that make you stop and take pause, "How is this word built?" This study began when I was reminded that the delight is not related to the light, meaning "source of illumination" or "pale." The delight is from the Latin delectare, which is also the source of delectable and delicious. The light has a source in Old English, *leht.
As we investigate this word, recall that looks can be deceiving. We will review adjectives and what might occur with a vocalic suffix. We will also take a look at medial vowel weakening, or as some refer to it, stem vowel shift. In our last question, we will see how to get a clue on spelling a schwa.
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Meaning
What is this word's meaning and how does the word function?
There are six senses of the word delicate in the Collins Co-Build Dictionary, the dictionary I use most often with students, given it's "student-friendly" way of constructing definitions. There may be different reasons for the order of the listed senses in the dictionary. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary lists each sense in chronological order. However, the Collins lists its senses by frequency of use.
Our entry shows that something that is delicate may be "small and beautifully shaped," "pleasant, but not intense," "easy to harm," "not healthy and strong," "needing to be dealt with carefully," or "showing great skill." The context of the word becomes even more important in these instances, and so we must help students use context clues.
In all of these senses, the word delicate is an adjective. Adjectives can be compared using suffixes or paired with more or less. They can also be paired with most or least to show comparison as well.
The older ornaments are more delicate than the new batch.
Her perfume is the least delicate of all the fragrances here.
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Structure
What are the elements that make up this word's structure?
Right away, I'm spotting a suffix <-ate>.
delic + ate
It's also possible that the destroy or depart.
de + lic + ate
Since my hypothetical base has the pattern CVC, and the suffix vocalic, then we may need an
de + lice/ + ate
The slash mark in my proposed sum shows that the
However, this is all conjecture until we check the entry in Etymonline. Here we see that this word came to us in the late fourteenth century from the Latin delicatus. However, that word says it is related to deliciae in delicere, a verb meaning "to allure; entice." That verb can be further sourced to Latin de- and lacere.
de + lice/ + ate
The vowel in the base shifts from to . This is due to Latin stress patterns and occurred prior to its entry in English; therefore, we would not represent it in a word sum. This is a regular feature in Latin, known as "medial vowel weakening" or "stem vowel shift."
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Relatives
What are the word's relatives and history?
The entry tells us to compare delicate to delight, delectable, and delicious. Those entries share the root of lacere. The words delight and delectable do not share a base with delicate; therefore, we would not put them in a matrix. The word delicious, does seem to have a word sum of de + lice/ + i + ous; we can put it in our matrix. Words in a matrix share a base and a root. Also inside the matrix, we could put elicit.
The words delight and delectable could be added inside of a circle drawn around the matrix. Words inside the circle are etymological relatives; they share a root but not a base.
Outside of that circle would be words like laceration, which comes from the Latin root lacerare, "tear; mangle." We also would leave out lice, which is the plural form of louse, and comes from Old English. Additionally, we'd leave license/licence outside of the etymological circle, as it is derived from Latin licere, "allowed; lawful."
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Graphemes
What can the pronunciation of the word teach us about the relationship of its graphemes and its phonology?
The prefix decommissioned, or with /ɛ/, as in our word delicate. Most often, it is pronounced with schwa, /ə/, as in decide or depend.
There is also a schwa in our base. Often a relative in the morphological family can help us determine how to spell the schwa. Here we can use elicit, where we pronounce the vowel with /ɪ/.
The suffix <-ate> is also pronounced with a schwa. Consistent recognition and repetition working with this suffix can help with the spelling of this suffix as well, even if it is homophonic with the suffixes in habit and blanket.
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Next Steps
What can we learn next about the English orthographic system?
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Working with the various senses of a word can help enrich a student's vocabulary usage. |
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When might the suffix <-ate> not be pronounced with a schwa? Think about suffixal constructions. |
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