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Space. Word building

Урок 17. Английский язык 8 класс ФГОС

В данном уроке рассматриваются все способы словообразования со словом «space».

Конспект урока "Space. Word building"

I bet you’ll be surprised to know that the word “space” has got several meanings. Let’s check in this etymology dictionary.

Etymology means the origin of words, what language and what century this or that word comes from, it means history of each word.

And also etymology is a science that does researches about words’ formation and how meanings of different words have changed over the years.

So, in old times the word “space” had only one meaning – an empty distance between objects, "a place," and also "amount or extent of time." Anyway, it used to indicate a ground lot, a piece of land, and territory; it means “space” filled by some universal substance: water or air; distance between two or more points.

Let’s look and compare the usage of the word “space” in the old days and today.

After typewriter was invented “space” attested the meaning of interval between words and some other words were invented, such as ‘space-bar’ for the key that makes a space between words. Actually, they still being used in computer – we have it on a keyboard, look: a space key or a space bar.

And also we have got a possibility to move back towards the beginning of a text line, so, that key has named “a backspace”. An action of deleting a space by moving back is usually called “to backspace”.

Astronomical sense of Space is attested from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, when a lot of science fiction books appeared (sounds). A lot of new words were coined and were quickly adopted in everyday life: space shuttle, spaceship, space probe, spacecraft, space travel, space flight.

Space shuttle, for example, was invented in 1970s when the first American space programme officially began; a space shuttle is a spacecraft used for repeated use in between earth and a space station and contains astronauts.

A spaceship is also a spacecraft that carries people through space.

A space probes one more type of spacecraft that does not have a person inside.

Space probes can be sent to far away distances for long periods of time to gather information about different areas in space, to Mars, to Jupiter, to Venice.

A spacecraft is a rocket or other vehicle that can travel in space; it orbits the earth for the purpose of research and there are a lot of kinds of spacecraft. Actually, a spacecraft is any type of vehicle used for travelling in space.

Space travel is a travel through space for the purpose of visiting or exploring other worlds, space flight is also a trip into space.

Some more words: spaceman, spacesuit, space helmet, space station, space-age, space-borne.

The real name for someone who travels into space is an “astronaut” but it also can be called “a spaceman”.

Spacesuit is special clothing. A spaceman usually wears it to protect the body when he is outside a spacecraft.

Space helmet is a part of spacesuit, which is put on the head.

Space station is a vehicle in which people can stay for a long time while they are travelling round the Earth, doing scientific tests.

Space age is the period in which the exploration of space has become possible, or sometimes it is used to say about something which is very modern or technologically advanced.

Space-borne is everything we have on the board and that is carried through space.

All these words are compounds, or compound words. It means that each of these long words was formed from two or more words. Look, we have a word “space” in each and the other, absolutely independent word in a full form, which we can use without “space”. They add a special meaning to the word space, standing nearby, but they don’t lose their meanings without “space”.

We should note that compounds are written in various ways in English:

1. with a space between the words, such as space travel, space station, space race, space shuttle, space flight;

2. with a hyphen between the words: space-age, space-time, space-borne;

3. with no separation between the words: spaceship, spacecraft, spacesuit, spaceman, spacewoman;

As all words were invented by different authors, there are some different words that mean absolutely the same, look: a spaceman, a space traveller, an astronaut, a space cadet, a spacer. All of them mean a person who travels in outer space, especially that one who trained to participate in a space flight.

Or look at these words, they are synonyms: space travel, space race, space flight.

Over time, the convention for writing compounds can change, usually in the direction from separate words to the one with no break, for example: at the beginning of the twentieth century the word “space man” was written separately, but then it started to be written with a hyphen “space-man” and now we write it together, as one word “spaceman”.

So, compound nouns are made up of two or sometimes even more words and written separately, with a hyphen or joined together.

There’s no one strict rule for writing. Everything we should know that no matter how a compound noun is written, it acts as a single unit in any case.

But we also need the words which not only name the subjects but also describe qualities or actions. So, we start to modify a word by affixation, it means that we add suffixes or prefixes, not other words. The effect is a change in a part of speech. We can make adjectives or verbs from the nouns.

Prefixes

There are some prefixes that are usually added to the word “space”. They all have come from the Greek or Latin languages and they all have special meanings.

Aero- prefix denoting planes or the air; usually it is used with some adjectives and nouns.

Cyber-. This prefix is relating to or characteristic of the culture of computers, information technology, and virtual reality and especially the Internet. For example, we send e-mails through cyberspace.

Inter- prefix, which implies the meaning of between or among or together, mutually, or reciprocally.

Sub- is usually added to the words to show they are situated under or beneath, as a small part of a larger thing or they can be just less important. This prefix is usually used with some nouns and adjectives.

Aerospace, cyberspace, interspace, subspace.

Aerospace is a noun and it is also an adjective that has a meaning of the air surrounding the earth or relating to the Earth's atmosphere and nearby space; it’s also relating to the science, technology and industry associated with aircraft, missiles, satellites and spacecraft.

For example, we can hear: aerospace engineering. Aerospace engineering deals with designing and building machines that fly.

Cyberspace is not a real location but rather the "world" created by computers and specifically the internet. Cyberspace is an electronic cosmic region, which a user can manipulate and "move through" by providing certain commands to a computer. In the virtual cyberspace, people can do many of the things they do in "normal" life: interact with other people, they can shop, read the news, and so on.

Interspace can be a noun and also a verb, but they are pronounced differently. As a verb it means “to make or occupy a space between” and as a noun it means “a space between or among things”.

Subspace is a noun that is used in math-course in universities or you can meet this word in science fiction books, where it means any method of communication which is faster than the speed of light.

We can also use suffixes with the word “space”. Let’s look at their meanings:

Suffix –less is used with many nouns to form adjectives and it means “without”.

Suffix -er is also used with some nouns to make other nouns meaning someone’s occupation, a job.

So, we have two words. “Spaceless” is an adjective that has two meanings: 1: having no limits: boundless; 2: occupying no space.

And “spacer” which is a noun we have already known – it is a synonym of astronaut.

The wide use the word “space” has in the informal English language. There are some examples:

Personal space

Of course, it isn’t a piece of outer space for personal use. It’s an invisible border around a person, about 2 feet of the area directly around each of us that we consider as invasion of privacy if somebody crosses it. Most people feel uncomfortable if someone else stands too close to him or to her.

Waste of space. I think that guy is a waste of space!

Usually the English call a person or thing that is not useful or helpful “waste of space”.

Watch this space. This phrase is used to say that there will be an exciting change in the situation and it will happen very soon and more information about the event will be given later, for example:

The results of the competition have still to come through – watch this space!

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