What is affixation?

Definition

Affixation is the morphological process whereby an affix is attached to a root or stem. Example (English)

In English, the plural morpheme suffix is added to job, rat, and kiss to form the following forms:

* jobs * rats * kisses

Generic Affixation is a kind of

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes. Affixation is, thus, the linguistic process speakers use to form different words by adding morphemes (affixes) at the beginning (prefixation), the middle (infixation) or the end (suffixation) of words.

* 1 Positional categories of affixes * 2 Lexical affixes * 3 Orthographic affixes * 4 See also * 5 References * 6 Bibliography * 7 External links

Positional categories of affixes

Affixes are divided into several categories, depending on their position with reference to the stem. Prefix and suffix are extremely common terms. Infix and circumfix are less so, as they are not important in European languages. The other terms are uncommon. Categories of affixes Affix Example Schema Description

Prefix un-do prefix-stem Appears at the front of a stem Suffix/Postfix look-ing stem-suffix Appears at the back of a stem Appears within a stem common in Borneo-

Infix Minneflippin'sota stinfixem Philippines languages

Circumfix ascattered circumfixstemcircumfix One portion appears at the front of a stem, and the other at the rear Interfix speed-o-meter in a compound Duplifix teeny~weeny portion of a stem stema-interfix-stemb stem~duplifix Links two stems together

Incorporates a reduplicated

(may occur in front, at the rear, or within the stem) Transfix Maltese: kiteb "he wrote" A discontinuous affix that

(compare root ktb "write") stransfixtetransfixm interleaves within a discontinuous stem

Simulfix Suprafix

mouse mice produce (noun)

Changes a segment of a stem

produce (verb)

Changes a suprasegmental phoneme of a stem

Disfix Alabama: tipli "break up" (compare root tipasli "break") stm The elision of a portion of a stem

Prefix and suffix may be subsumed under the term adfix in contrast to infix.

In transcription, for example in the third column in the chart above, simple affixes such as prefixes and suffixes are shown connected to the stem with hyphens. Affixes which disrupt the stem, or which themselves are discontinuous, are often marked off with angle brackets. Reduplication is often shown with a tilde. Lexical affixes

Lexical affixes (or semantic affixes) are bound elements that appear as affixes, but function as incorporated nouns within verbs and as elements of compound nouns. In other words, they are similar to word roots/stems in function but similar to affixes in form. Although similar to incorporated nouns, lexical affixes differ in that they never occur as freestanding nouns, i.e. they always appear as affixes.

Lexical affixes are relatively rare. The Wakashan, Salishan, and Chimakuan languages all have lexical suffixes the presence of these is an areal feature of the Pacific Northwest of the North America.

The lexical suffixes of these languages often show little to no resemblance to free nouns with similar meanings. Compare the lexical suffixes and free nouns of Northern Straits Saanich written in the Saanich orthography and in Americanist notation: Lexical Suffix -o, -nt -a -net Noun ,etlew telx "day" "person"

"person"

"day" siel skil

-sen -wtw

-sn

"foot, lower leg"

sxene,

sxn

"foot, lower leg" ,,le el

-ewtx "house"

"building, house, campsite"

Lexical suffixes when compared with free nouns often have a more generic or general meaning. For instance, one of these languages may have a lexical suffix that means water in a general sense, but it may not have any noun equivalent referring to water in general and instead have several nouns with a more specific meaning (such "saltwater", "whitewater", etc.). In other cases, the lexical suffixes have become grammaticalized to various degrees.

Some linguists have claimed that these lexical suffixes provide only adverbial or adjectival notions to verbs. Other linguists disagree arguing that they may additionally be syntactic arguments just as free nouns are and thus equating lexical suffixes with incorporated nouns. Gerdts (2003) gives examples of lexical suffixes in the Halkomelem language (the word order here is Verb Subject Object):

VERB SUBJ OBJ (1) ni ak-t-s seni qeq

"the woman washed the baby"

VERB+LEX.SUFF (2) ni k-y

SUBJ seni

"the woman baby-washed"

In sentence (1), the verb "wash" is akts where ak- is the root and -t and -s are inflectional suffixes. The subject "the woman" is seni and the object "the baby" is qeq. In this sentence, "the baby" is a free noun. (The ni here is an auxiliary, which can be ignored for explanatory purposes.)

In sentence (2), "baby" does not appear as a free noun. Instead it appears as the lexical suffix -y which is affixed to the verb root k- (which has changed slightly

in pronunciation, but this can also be ignored here). Note how the lexical suffix is neither "the baby" (definite) nor "a baby" (indefinite); such referential changes are routine with incorporated nouns. Orthographic affixes

In orthography, the terms for affixes may be used for the smaller elements of conjunct characters. For example, Maya glyphs are generally compounds of a main sign and smaller affixes joined at its margins. These are called prefixes, superfixes, postfixes, and subfixes according to their position to the left, on top, to the right, or at the bottom of the main glyph. A small glyph placed inside another is called an infix.[1] Similar terminology is found with the conjunct consonants of the Indic alphabets. For example, the Tibetan alphabet utilizes prefix, suffix, superfix, and subfix consonant letters.[2] See also

* Agglutination * Augmentative * Binary prefix * Clitic * Concatenation * Derivation * Diminutive * English prefixes * Family name affixes * Internet-related prefixes * Marker (linguistics) * Separable affix * SI prefix * Stemming - affix removal using computer software * Unpaired word

* Word formation

References

1. ^ Robert Sharer & Loa Traxler, 2006, The Ancient Maya, Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4817-9 2. ^ Andrew West, "Precomposed Tibetan Part 1 : BrdaRten" BabelStone, September 14, 2006

Prefixes and Suffixes of English Language

Counting prefixes: quantify the root

Involvement Prefixes

Judgement Prefixes

Locative Prefixes

Measurement Prefixes

Negative Prefixes

Temporal prefixes

English Suffixes

Deriving adjectives from nouns and verbs

Prefixes and Suffixes of English Language

Counting prefixes: quantify the root

a-an: lacking assymetry, amoral

ambi: both, around: ambians, ambiguous, amphitheatre

arch: chief, principal, high archbishop, archduke

bi: twice, double bilingual, bycicle, bipolar, biennial,

di: two dichloride, dioxide

mono: one monograph, monosyllabic

multi: many multilingual, multifaceted

oligo: few oligarchy, oligotrophic

omni: all omnipotent, omniscient

pan: all, comprising or affecting all panorama, pandemic

poly: many polygamy, polyangular

tri: three triangle, tridimensional

uni: one unisex, univocal

Involvement Prefixes: say somehing about the kind of involvement of the participants in the action

Anti- opposed, instead,against antidote, antacid

Auto- self automation, autobiography

Co-con- together, jointly cooperate, coexistance

Contra- against, opposite contradiction, contrary

Vice- in place of, instead vice-president, vice-consl

Judgement Prefixes: judgement about the root

Dis- disturb, disgruntle

Dys- bad, badly dyslogistic

Eu- good, well euphoria, evangelical

Extra- outside the scope of extraordinary, extraterrestrial

Mal- ill, evil, wrong malnutrition

Meta- changed, transcending metaphysics, metalanguage

Mis- badly, wrongly misuse, miscalculate

Pro- on behalf of pro-education

Proto- first, chief protolanguage

Pseudo- false, deceptive, resemblance pseudonym

Locative Prefixes: place or direction

Ab-, a-, abs- from, away abnormal

Ad- toward admit, advance

Ana- back anatomy, analogy

Apo- away, from apology

Cata- down, away, back, opposite catastrophe

Circum- around circumcise

Counter- against, opposite counterfeit, counterargument

De- away from, down deny, depend

Dia- across, through diachronic

Ecto-, exo-: external ectoderm, exocentric

En- in, into enclose

Endo- internal endoscopy

Epi- on, over epiderm

Ex-, ec-: out from, away eccentric

In- in, into, within intransitive

Infra- below, beneath, within infrastructure

Inter- between, among internet

Intra-, intro- inside introduction

Ob- toward, against obfuscate

Para- beside, along with paramedic

Per- through, thoroughly performance

Peri- around, nearby perimeter

Pro- in front of proverb

Pros- cencerning, toward prosody

Retro- backwards, back retrospective

Sub- under, below subway

Super- over, above superlative

Sur- over, beyond, above surrealist

Syn- with, together syntax

Trans-, tres-, tra- across, surpassing transgression

Measurement Prefixes

Crypto- secret, hidden cryptography

Hyper- over, to exess hypermedia

Hypo- under, slightly hypoglossal

Is-, iso- equal isotope

Macro- large, broad scale macroeconomics

Micro- tiny, small scale microscope

Mid- middle midnight

Semi- half, partly semifinal

Ultra- beyond, extreme ultraviolet

Negative Prefixes

Dis- apart, reversal, lacking displace

In- negative incredible, illegible

Non- not nonsense

Ob- inverse, in the opposite directions object

Se-, sed- apart seduce, seperate

Un- not, opposite uneven

Temporal prefixes: time and duration

Ante- preceding ante-Norman

Fore- before foreword

Neo- new, recent neolithic

Post- after, behind postpone

Pre-, pro- before, infront of preface

Re-, red- anew, again, back rehearse, regenerate

Suffixes

Deriving adjectives from nouns and verbs

-able fit for doing, fit for being done comfortable

-al (-ial, -ical, -ual) having the property of facial

-an, -ian belonging to, resembling reptilian

-ary having a tendency or purpose secondary

-ate full of passionate

-ese belonging to a place portugese

-esque having the style of X picturesque

-esc become coalesce

-ful full of X skillful

-iac pertaining to the property of maniac

-ic having the property of medic

-ish to become like X girlish

-ive characterized by passive

-less without, free from fearless

-ly appropriate to, befitting timely

-oid having the shape of, resembling humanoid

-ory connected with, serving for obligatory

-ose full of, abounding in verbose

-ous of the nature of X religious

-some like, characterized by, apt to awesome

-y full of, characterized by mighty

Forming abstract nouns

-asy, -acy state or quality ecstasy

-age condition, state, rank, office of coinage, postage

-ance, -ence state, act, fact of emergence

-ade general noun salad, parade, lemonade

-al act of local

-ation state of being X-ed information

-ery, -ry collectivity slavery

-hood state od, condition of fatherhood

-ia condition of inertia

-icity abstract noun from ic felicity

-ism doctrical system of principles constructivism

-ity state, quality, condition of unity

-ment condition of being X garment

-ness state, quality, condition of innateness

-ship state, condition of friendship

Forming agentive nouns

-ant, -ent one who agent

-arian member of sect, holding to a doctirne authoritarian

-ast one assiciated with X enthusiast

-er agent worker, baker, teacher

-ist one connected with, often agent artist

-ician one skilled in some art or science politician

Forming verbs from roots and stems

-ate cause X to happen terminate

-en to become liken, darken

-ify to cause to (be) X rectify

-ize to cause to be X realize

Miscellaneous suffixes

-arium locative, a place for of connected with aquarium

-ess feminine of X tigress

-let diminutive booklet