Morpheme Monday - -ance / -ence

Suffixes -ance and -ence

Quick review - morphemes are the small units of meaning that form words. Today we are looking at the suffixes -ance and -ence. The suffixes -ance and -ence are ultimately derived from Latin -antia and -entia, often through French; they commonly form nouns meaning a state, quality, action, or result.

Since -ance and -ence are suffixes, they appear in many English words. Here are a few examples.

• performance: from perform (“to do; carry out”) + -ance. Meaning: “The execution or accomplishment of a task, often measured by effectiveness or quality.”

• excellence: from Latin excellere (“to rise, surpass, be superior”) + -ence. Meaning: “The quality of being excellent.”

• acceptance: from accept (“to take what is offered; admit and agree to something”) + -ance. Meaning: “The act of accepting something or someone.”

• abundance: from Latin abundantia (“abundance; fullness”) + -ance. Meaning: “A large quantity of something; plentifulness or richness in resources or materials.”

• residence: from Latin residere (“to settle; remain”) + -ence. Meaning: “The act or fact of dwelling in a place for some time.”

• finance: from Old French finer (“to end or settle”) + -ance. Meaning: “Money or other liquid resources of a government, business, group, or individual.”

• independence: from in- (“not”) + Latin dependere (“to hang from; be dependent”) + -ence. Meaning: “The state of not depending on others; self-support or self-government.”

• remembrance: from re- (“again”) + Latin memorari (“to call to mind”) + -ance. Meaning: “The act of remembering or the state of being remembered; a memory or memorial.”

• difference: from Latin differre (“to set apart; differ”), from dis- (“apart, away from”) + ferre (“to bear, carry”) + -ence. Meaning: “An instance of being unlike or distinct in nature, form, or quality.”

• resistance: from Latin resistere (“to stand back or oppose”) + -ance. Meaning: “The refusal to accept or comply with something; the ability to withstand or oppose.”

  
  

Improving Spelling and Understanding with -ance

Reading automaticity

Morphemes are sometimes syllables or chunks that, once we recognize them, we can read with more automaticity. The suffixes -ance and -ence are often pronounced with a reduced vowel followed by /ns/. This may sound like the ending of mints or hints, or it may be reduced to a schwa. Dictionaries often show a schwa-like pronunciation, /ən(t)s/, but I hear it closer to /ɪ/, as in pit. Learning about -ance and -ence as suffixes can help students read these endings more accurately and improve their spelling.

Spelling

Practice and exposure to morphemes can help with spelling. In a Speech to Print approach, we start with the sounds first (which, as I mentioned above, sounds like "ince" or "ints" or /ən(t)s/). To help us with spelling, we may need to notice a few things. First, when you hear those sounds at the end of a word, we need to ask ourselves, is the final /s/ sound a plural ending? Words like "mint" or "hint" lose the clear /t/ sound when they become plural and sound similar to the end of "independence" or "defiance," so we need to check first whether we are spelling a plural word. If the word is a plural, as in more than one "stint" or "glint," then spell the base word first and add the plural suffix "-s" or "-es". However, if we hear "ince" at the end of a word and it is not a plural, for example, is "abundance" more than one abunan? No! Then we are probably going to spell those sounds <ance> or <ence>. It will almost never be spelled <ince>. In fact, Merriam-Webster lists only a small number of common words that end with <ince>. Merriam-Webster Word Finder.

And more spelling

The tricky part with these suffixes, once you know it is going to be <ence> or <ance>, there isn't an easy way to tell whether you're going to use <e> or <a>, because we can't often hear the difference. You will find some "rules" out there, but there are always exceptions. They also require students to have a lot of knowledge of other forms of the word, which is asking a lot for students who are already using a lot of their brain power for spelling the sounds.

For example, ck-12.org says: "If you can add [enshəl] (spelled <ential>) to the stem and get a recognizable word, the [əns] is -ence. For instance, if you can't decide between <confidence> and <confidance>, and you replace the [əns] with [enshəl], the result is a word you should recognize: confidential. In any [əns] word that can take [enshəl] this way, you can be sure that the [əns] suffix is -ence. " That's assuming the student knows words like "differential." I’m not even sure, as a 42-year-old word nerd, how or whether that applies to words like "negligence" or "obedience" etc.

They go on to say "bound stems" will usually have the "ence" ending. Again, I’m not sure how or whether that applies to "fragrance, nuisance, reluctance, tolerance," etc. Are "fragr-, nuis-, reluct-, and toler-" free bases, or bound stems? It seems like a lot of knowledge to sort through for struggling spellers.

In my Google search, I also found more "rules" from Accelerate Spelling but the cognitive load is the same. Writers are expected to apply several different conditions and tests to think about the spelling.

So how to help? Experience, correction, repetition. As always, it isn't about more "rules" (and exceptions) but more experience, repetition, correction, and practice. Sure, we can "teach" all those rules, but in the time it takes to drill those into students’ heads (I didn't know them until looking them up), we could have read and practiced writing any number of words, a paragraph, etc. and repeated that over days, weeks, months rather than spending that time on rules and exceptions.

Other Thoughts

I doubt—but do not know for certain—whether every word ending in -ance or -ence actually contains one of these suffixes. Words such as dance and hence seem unlikely to contain a suffix, while silence and nuance have more interesting histories. This information is fascinating if you enjoy linguistics and word history, but it is more than students need in order to read and spell. We cannot know the etymology of every word, and we do not need to.

This is where a Speech to Print approach really shines. At a basic level, students need to know that when they hear that reduced-vowel-plus-/ns/ sound at the end of a word, it is likely spelled <ance> or <ence>. When they see those spellings, they may need to try a vowel sound other than /æ/ or /ɛ/, especially because the vowel is often reduced.