Notes from SWI

Today we explored two student-chosen words and one word pairing that I brought to the table and was wondering whether they were related. We focused on the first three questions of SWI and did not do matrixes or IPA.

My intention is to focus on generating questions, building curiosity, and developing the expectation that there will be patterns that will make sense.

< potato >

< hedgehog >

< cave > and < cavity >

< potato >

what does it mean?

how is it built?

possible word sums were < po + ta + to > and < pota + to >

and, of course, potato could be a base

evidence for a < -to > suffix?

< toe > ?

evidence for a meaning relationship between "potato" and "toe" ?
they have a similar shape; also, one child pointed out that there are "fingerling" potatoes so maybe there are "toe" potatoes

if it did end in an e, where did the e go?

what are its relatives?

< potato > comes from the Spanish patata from a Carib language of Haiti batata

it is a New World word

< hedgehog >

what does it mean?

how is it built?

everyone was in agreement that this was a compound word made of two bases, hedge + hog

we discussed why this may be...

hedge means hiding, hedge means bush, so maybe the hedgehog hides under bushes or maybe its back is spiky like a bush

what are its relatives?

< hedgehog > is indeed a compound word of hedge + hog, from its being found in hedges and from its snout

interesting, hedgehog replaced the Old English word igl

< cave > and < cavity >

what does it mean?

is there a meaning relationship between these words?

mouth is dark and wet, like a cave

cavity gets hollowed out by bacteria
like a bulldozer moves earth to make a cave

cavity also means a hole or a space, like chest cavity

how is it built?

cave + ity?

evidence for an < -ity > suffix?

gravity —> grave + ity
 ?
scarcity —> scarce + ity ?

what are its relatives?

< cave >
from Latin cavea "hollow" (place), noun use of neuter plural of adjective cavus "hollow"

< cavity >
from Late Latin cavitatem (nominative cavitas) "hollowness," from Latin cavus "hollow"

so, these words are definitely related, both going back to Latin cavus "hollow"

BUT

they are not the word sum < cave/ + ity >
(the slash meaning that cave is ending in a replaceable "e")

BECAUSE

cavity evolved from a Late Latin word that had evolved from an earlier Latin word... and then both words came into our language
cavea became CAVE
cavitas became CAVITY

they are both bases

so, yes to being related
no to the draft word sum

we also took a dip into PIE and saw that they come from the PIE root *keue