--- title: Back-formation means making a new word by chopping off what looks li… — Building words: prefixes, suffixes and compounds · tree and pragmatics description: Back-formation means making a new word by chopping off what looks like an ending: "burgle" was made from "burglar", and "edit" from "editor". Who acts: Back formation, new word. A sentence of the lesson «Building words: prefixes, suffixes and compounds» of the language course of Mova's primary schoo --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/37-building-words-prefixes-suffixes-and-compounds/11/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / [Building words: prefixes, suffixes and…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/37-building-words-prefixes-suffixes-and-compounds/) / 11 # Building words: prefixes, suffixes and compounds, sentence 11 Back-formation means making a new word by chopping off what looks like an ending: "burgle" was made from "burglar", and "edit" from "editor". **Who acts:** Back formation, new word · **What happens:** mean, make, chop off, look · **To what, where:** new word, burgle, burglar This is a sentence of the lesson «Building words: prefixes, suffixes and compounds» of the language course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Back formation, new word), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:language:037-building-words-prefixes-suffixes-and-compounds.lesson:11 # text = Back-formation means making a new word by chopping off what looks like an ending: "burgle" was made from "burglar", and "edit" from "editor". # source = school lesson (ours) # course = language # lesson = 037-building-words-prefixes-suffixes-and-compounds.lesson # annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1 1 Back back NOUN NN _ 3 compound _ _ 2 - - PUNCT HYPH _ 3 punct _ _ 3 formation formation NOUN NN Number=Sing 4 nsubj _ _ 4 means mean VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 5 making make VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 4 xcomp _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=4:obj 6 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 8 det _ _ 7 new new ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 8 amod _ _ 8 word word NOUN NN Number=Sing 5 obj _ _ 9 by by SCONJ IN _ 10 mark _ _ 10 chopping chop VERB VBG VerbForm=Ger 8 acl _ _ 11 off off ADP RP _ 10 compound:prt _ _ 12 what what PRON WP PronType=Int 13 nsubj _ _ 13 looks look VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 10 parataxis _ _ 14 like like ADP IN _ 16 case _ _ 15 an a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 16 det _ _ 16 ending ending NOUN NN Number=Sing 13 obl _ _ 17 : : PUNCT : _ 4 punct _ _ 18 " " PUNCT `` _ 19 punct _ _ 19 burgle burgle NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 nsubj:pass _ Agree=R8-pos-agree|Haiku=22:nsubj:pass|HaikuPos=VERB:VB:VerbForm=Inf 20 " " PUNCT '' _ 19 punct _ _ 21 was be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 22 aux:pass _ _ 22 made make VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 4 parataxis _ _ 23 from from ADP IN _ 25 case _ _ 24 " " PUNCT `` _ 25 punct _ _ 25 burglar burglar NOUN NN Number=Sing 22 obl _ _ 26 " " PUNCT '' _ 25 punct _ _ 27 , , PUNCT , _ 30 punct _ _ 28 and and CCONJ CC _ 30 cc _ _ 29 " " PUNCT `` _ 30 punct _ _ 30 edit edit NOUN NN Number=Sing 25 conj _ _ 31 " " PUNCT '' _ 30 punct _ _ 32 from from ADP IN _ 34 case _ _ 33 " " PUNCT `` _ 34 punct _ _ 34 editor editor NOUN NN Number=Sing 30 nmod _ _ 35 " " PUNCT '' _ 34 punct _ _ 36 . . PUNCT . _ 4 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} No stored speech act for this sentence. | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **mean** | present | Back formation | | | | | | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | | 2 | **make** *not said to happen* | gerund | Back formation *not said here* | a new word | | | | | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset word=Product | | 3 | **chop off** | gerund | a new word *not said here* | | | | | | vn carve-21.2-2 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient | | 4 | **look** | present | | | | | | like a ending | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus | | 5 | **make** | past · passive | | burgle | | burglar and edit from editor | | | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V PP»: subject=Product from burglar=Material | One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree. **Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:language:037-building-words-prefixes-suffixes-and-compounds.lesson:11`. **The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R7-rel-agree ×1, R8-pos-agree ×1. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence. See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/). - ← previous: [Building words: prefixes, suffixes and…, 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/37-building-words-prefixes-suffixes-and-compounds/10/) - next →: [Building words: prefixes, suffixes and…, 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/37-building-words-prefixes-suffixes-and-compounds/12/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/37-building-words-prefixes-suffixes-and-compounds/)