The leader's infectious laugh spreads good cheer throughout his team, creating a jovial and amiable atmosphere.
How does adding -ous to change infect to infectious change the word's part of speech
By adding -ous to the word infect, it changes the word from a verb to an adjective.
Adding the suffix -ous to the word "infect" changes its part of speech from a verb to an adjective.
The verb "infect" refers to the act of spreading a disease or contaminating something. However, by adding the suffix -ous, the word becomes "infectious," which functions as an adjective describing something that can cause infection or easily spread, such as an infectious laugh.
Adding the suffix "-ous" to the base word "infect" changes its part of speech from a verb to an adjective. This is a common pattern in English, where adding "-ous" to a verb makes it an adjective describing the characteristic or quality of the verb.
To understand how this change happens, let's look at the definitions of the words:
- "Infect" is a verb that means to transmit a disease or a harmful substance from one person, animal, or object to another.
- "Infectious" is an adjective that describes something as capable of spreading or being transmitted from one person, animal, or object to another, often referring to the spread of good qualities like laughter, cheer, or enthusiasm.
So, by adding the suffix "-ous" to "infect," we change the word's function in the sentence from an action (verb) to a description (adjective). In this case, it changes the word from "infect" (a verb) to "infectious" (an adjective) to describe the leader's laugh.