3.12 Greek Morphemes & Syllables

3.12 & 13 Greek Morphemes &
Syllable Patterns

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Today we’ll study words in English that came from Greek. These are usually
compounded using two main Greek word roots.

By the end of this lesson you should be able to pick out the two root words that make
up a Greek word. You should be able to correctly divide words from Greek into
syllables.

1.

Recall that words from Latin are made up of a stressed root and unstressed

prefix or suffix.

For example, in important, we stress, or pronounce most clearly, “port,” the

root of the word. imPORTant

Multiple Choice

What is the root of the word subtraction?

• sub

• tract

• tion

• subtract

2. Words from Greek are often made up of two parts with equal stress.

Example Greek Words

Roots Combined

Word

tele + scope

telescope

poly + gon

psych + ology

hemi + sphere

auto + graph

bio + graph + y

3. Some of the roots are usually used at the beginning of a word and are
more like prefixes, like tele- in (example word) television.

4. We can add suffixes to Greek-based words.

For example: hemisphere + ic = ____________________

Unique Greek Syllable Pattern

5. Recall that words can be divided into syllables. We often divide syllables between
consonants, like in these Anglo-Saxon and Latin-based words:

friendship

blackboard

traction

instrumentalist

Multiple Choice

How many syllables are there in neighborhood?

• 2

• 3

• 5

• 1

6. Greek words usually follow regular syllable patterns, with one exception. Some
syllables can be separated between vowels. This is important to understand when
you ____________________.

For example:

biology

theology

geography

dialogue

Multiple Choice

How would you divide "democracy" into syllables?

• demo cracy

• de m o cr a cy

• dem o cra cy

• demo cracy

Today we learned that words from
Greek usually have two or more
joined roots. We learned that
Greek words can sometimes be
divided into syllables between
two vowels.

How’d you do?