Due to the particularities concerning Grammar, there is a linguistic fact related to the process of word formation.
In this way, one must conceive that numerous words belonging to the Portuguese language originate from other languages, more precisely from the Greek and Latin.
To better understand how this process takes place, we will take the word self-cleaning. It is composed of two radicals: self- and clean-.
Auto- is a Greek stem, whose meaning is related to “by itself”, and limp- is a stem that allows the creation of a series of new words formed from it.
Like for example: cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, among others. In this way, the term in evidence means cleans itself, by itself.
Expanding the notion of how the semantics of some radicals of Greek and Latin origin occurs, we will analyze some occurrences below:
Latin origin:
| radicals | Meaning | Examples |
| agri | field | farmer |
| beli | war | belligerent |
| ferri | iron | ferric |
| crazy | place | location |
| mater | mom | maternal |
| eyeglass | eye | eye |
| opera | work, work | factory worker |
| pater | father | paternal |
| withdrew | straight | rectilinear |
| tri | three | quarter |
| vermi | worm | vermifuge |
| video | who sees | fortune teller |
| vinyl | wine | winery |
| bird | that eats | carnivore |
Greek Origin:
| radicals | Meaning | Examples |
| agogo | who leads | pedagogue |
| pain | ache | neuralgia |
| archy | government | monarchy |
| knock | who walks | acrobat |
| chlorine | green | chlorophyll |
| dermis | skin | dermatologist |
| etho | custom | ethic |
| hema | blood | Red blood cell |
| mancia | guesswork | palmistry |
| asked | instruction | encyclopedia |
| pleo | full | pleonasm |
| term | heat | thermometer |
| top | place | surveyor |
| zoo | animal | zoology |
By Vânia Duarte
Graduated in Letters
Brazil School Team
Grammar - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/gramatica/o-valor-semantico-dos-radicais.htm