Languages & Linguistics
Suffix
A suffix is a linguistic element added to the end of a word to modify its meaning or create a new word. In languages, suffixes are used to indicate grammatical categories such as tense, number, case, and gender. They can also change the word's part of speech, turning a noun into a verb, for example.
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eBook - PDFThe French Influence on Middle English Morphology
A Corpus-Based Study on Derivation
- Christiane Dalton-Puffer(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
4. Aspects of a taxonomy of Middle English derivational suf-fixes 4.1. A definition of some basic terms Morphology is an area of language where borders and subdivisions are notori-ously difficult to define. Chapter 4 will look into this matter in some detail, but before we can embark on a discussion of some problematic aspects, we need to clarify the way in which several terms will be used in that discussion as well as in the subsequent descriptive chapters of this study. 18 Morphology is conventionally seen as consisting of two parts: inflection and derivation. Inflection produces the word-forms which reflect the grammatical functions within sentences, such as case, number or tense. These word-forms, however, are not considered to be new words of the language. Creating new words is the job of word-formation, which enriches the vocabulary by combining lexical material already present in the language. Such a view of word-formation encompasses a fairly wide range of phenomena: compounding (the combination of free lexical morphemes), conversion (transferring a lexical item to a different syntactic category without an overt marker), and derivation proper (the combina-tion of free and bound lexical morphemes). The discussion and description in this book is limited to derivation and within that area to those cases where the free lexical morpheme precedes the bound one (i.e. Suffixation). I shall refer to the bound lexical morphemes as derivational Suffixes. In the preceding paragraph I have used (and had to use) a number of terms that are not necessarily straightforward. Let me shortly sketch my understanding and use of them. The term word as such tends to be intuitively accessible on a non-technical level without difficulty. As with a number of other intuitively appealing linguistic terms, it is extremely difficult to come up with a coherent technical definition.
eBook - PDF- Ingo Plag, Maria Braun, Sabine Lappe, Mareile Schramm(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
88 The structure of words: morphology made for any of the inflectional Suffixes listed in (30) above. The derivational Suffix -er , however, behaves in a different way in this respect. It has the capac-ity to change the word-class of its bases from verb to noun. This is also the case with many other derivational affixes, as for instance, with the derivational suf-fix -less , which changes nouns into adjectives, as in joy (N) – joyless (A), or the derivational Suffix -en which changes adjectives into verbs, as in black (A) – blacken (V), etc. Note, however, that very few English prefixes change the word-class of the base. They are nevertheless considered derivational be-cause they create new lexemes, and not word-forms of the same lexeme, as, for instance, semi-transparent , impossible , replay . We can conclude that when-ever an affix changes the word-class of the base, it is a derivational affix. To summarise, we have seen in this section that affixes can be grouped into two different types according to their function: derivational affixes, that are used to create new lexemes, and inflectional affixes, that are used to express differ-ent word-forms of the same lexeme. The two types of affixes differ in a number of properties. We will summarise these properties in the following table: Using derivational affixes is only one of many possible ways of creating new lexemes. In the next section we will take a closer look at different processes by which new lexemes can be created. 3.7. Word-formation 3.7.1. What is word-formation? It has already been mentioned above that, among other things, morphology deals with the ways of creating new lexemes. We have also seen in the pre-vious section that one such way is adding derivational affixes to existing bases. However, there are many other ways by which speakers can create new lexemes and thus give names to new things, abstract notions, etc.
eBook - PDFLinguistic Theory and Complex Words
Nuuchahnulth Word Formation
- J. Stonham(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
4 Suffixation Suffixation is the most productive means of word formation in Nuuchah- nulth. There are hundreds of Suffixes of various types interacting and combining to form the word. Since the bulk of affixation in Nuuchahnulth is Suffixation, this will be the sole subject of this chapter, which is divided into the three categories of inflection, aspect, and derivation. 4.1 Inflection versus Derivation There has been extensive discussion in the literature of the distinction between inflection and derivation, e.g., Scalise (1988), Badecker & Caramazza (1989), who present two differing views. Bickel & Nichols (forthcoming) observe: Cross-linguistic variation in the forms and categories of in- flectional morphology is so great that 'inflection' cannot be defined by simply generalizing over attested inflectional sys- tems or paradigms. Rather, we define it as those categories of morphology that are SENSITIVE TO THE GRAMMATICAL ENVIRONMENT in which they are expressed. ... Inflection differs from derivation in that derivation is a lexical matter in which choices are independent of the grammatical environ- ment. The relevant grammatical environment can be either syntactic or morphological. The syntactic environment is relevant, for example, when morphological choices are de- termined by agreement. In Nuuchahnulth there are many areas where the distinction is blurred. Early on, Sapir (1921:134) remarked upon this ambiguity: 64 Suffixation 65 What if we add the preterit tense Suffix -it? Is not inikw-ihl- 'minih-'is-it necessarily a verb: 'several small fires were burning in the house'? It is not.
eBook - PDFFor the Love of Language
An Introduction to Linguistics
- Kate Burridge, Tonya N. Stebbins(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
The noun stem 1-2-3-4-5 indicates the five types of affixes: • type 1: augmentative/diminutive (indicating relative importance or power of a noun) • type 2: number (an optional Suffix indicating plural) • type 3: qualification (indicating the speaker’s attitude) • type 4: possession (indicating possessor) • type 5: grammatical relations (indicating the function of a noun in the sentence). Here is a noun with five Suffixes: QaghHommeyHeylIjmo’ ‘because of your apparent minor mistakes’. The following is its morphological breakdown: Qagh-Hom-mey-Hey-lIj-mo’ mistake-diminutive-plural-apparent-your-because of Verb stems have a prefix indicating the players in the event or action (so they correspond to free-standing pronouns in English, such as I, me and he). The slots in the Klingon verb look like this: prefix-verb stem 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9. The Suffixes express various concepts that are important to Klingon culture (such as accuracy and social hierarchy). The language doesn’t have tense, but many of these Suffixes indicate other kinds of temporal information – for example, they indicate the stage of an event, action or state, and how it relates to the flow of time. In between Suffixes 1–9 appear special markers called ‘rovers’. One such roving Suffix negates the verb. PARADIGMS We have seen that affixes that encode grammatical information are called inflectional mor- phemes. In languages that make a good deal of use of inflectional morphology, there are large sets of inflected forms for each word, which are called paradigms. We touched on patterns and paradigms in Chapter 1, but here we explore them in more detail. Further resources Further resources 123 CHAPTER 5: Morphology: The structure of words Table 5.9 shows part of the inflectional paradigm for the noun boy in Russian. Such par- adigms are not just handy ways of setting out the different forms that words can assume in languages like Russian.
- Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams, , Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
46 CHAPTER 2 Morphology: The Words of Language we affix -ity to specific (pronounced “specifik” with a k sound), we get specificity (pronounced “specifisity” with an s sound). When deriving Elizabeth 1 -an from Elizabeth, the fourth vowel sound changes from the vowel in Beth to the vowel in Pete. Other Suffixes such as -y, -ive, and -ize may induce similar changes: sane/ sanity, deduce/deductive, critic/criticize. On the other hand, Suffixes such as -er, -ful, -ish, -less, -ly, and -ness may be tacked onto a base word without affecting the pronunciation, as in baker, wish- ful, boyish, needless, sanely, and fullness. Moreover, affixes from the first class cannot be attached to a base containing an affix from the second class: *need 1 less 1 ity, *moral 1 ize 1 ive; but affixes from the second class may attach to bases with either kind of affix: moral 1 iz(e) 1 er, need 1 less 1 ness. Inflectional Morphology Zits Partnership/King Features Syndicate Function words such as to, it, and be are free morphemes. Many languages, including English, also have bound morphemes that have a strictly grammati- cal function. They mark properties such as tense, number, person, and so forth. Such bound morphemes are called inflectional morphemes. Unlike derivational morphemes, they never change the grammatical category of the stems to which they are attached. Consider the forms of the verb in the following sentences: 1. I sail the ocean blue. 2. He sails the ocean blue. 3. John sailed the ocean blue. 4. John has sailed the ocean blue. 5. John is sailing the ocean blue. In sentence (2) the -s at the end of the verb is an agreement marker; it signi- fies that the subject of the verb is third-person and is singular, and that the verb is in the present tense. It doesn’t add lexical meaning. The Suffix -ed indicates past tense, and is also required by the syntactic rules of the language when verbs are used with auxiliary have, just as -ing is required when verbs are used with auxiliary be.
eBook - PDF- Carola Trips(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
2 The development of Suffixes 2.1 Introduction In this chapter I will give an overview of the literature dealing with the development of suf-fixes. Although there is a wealth of literature on the classification of morphological elements like words, morphemes, compounds, Suffixes and the like there is not much to be found that describes the development of these elements from a diachronic perspective. Thus, the linguist trying to investigate this matter is almost completely left alone. Whereas nineteenth-century linguistics with its mainly historical orientation paid quite a lot of attention to morphological issues, they are almost absent in the literature on current morphology. This matter reflects the status morphology has as a field of research in modern linguistics. The question of why morphology is neglected will not be discussed here, but the reader should keep this in mind in the following, because this fact bears on the organisation of this chapter. First, traditional nineteenth-century works on morphology will be discussed before these observations will be compared with those found in the current literature. In this way, I hope to attain a for-mal and semantic description of the development of Suffixes and of the several stages of this development, that will serve as a tool to describe the diachronic data in chapter 4. 2.1.1 From free to bound morpheme One of the few linguists who dealt with the development of Suffixes explicitly is Hermann Paul (1995). In his famous Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte he devotes a whole chapter to the development of word formation and inflection (chapter 19). Although his work dates from 1880 and reflects the traditional nineteenth century framework, many of his observations are still valid and the reader is sometimes surprised by his modern (structuralist) assumptions. This also applies to his insights into the development of Suffixes and that is why his observa-tions will be discussed here.
- Jacek Fisiak(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
As a result, the intervention of the inflection is late in the genesis of the word: it operates at the level of its morphogenesis; on the contrary, the intervention of the derivational Suffix is early: it operates at the level of the ideogenesis of the word. Hewson has shown that the role of any derivational Suffix is to prolong the particularizing operation which underlies the ideogenesis. This is quite obvious in the case of diminutive Suffixes (piglet is more particular than pig), but the situation is the same for any deriva-tional Suffix. For this reason, the derivational Suffix is not the sign of the part of speech {-ful in Modern English is both adjectival: thoughtful, and nominal: cupful)·, but insofar as it orientates the matter of the word into a certain direction, it very often makes the word more appropriate for use as a particular part of speech. The derivational Suffix itself has a very vague or subtle ( = of vague consistency) meaning, but as a formative element of the word, its function is to particularize the matter of the word, by modifying it to a greater or lesser extent. 8. To define the meaning of a subducted element is very difficult. Guillaume has shown that the further the dematerialization is carried, the easier the subducted element is to handle, but the more difficult it is to characterize notionally (Guillaume 1964: 75-77). Some linguists have argued that the Suffix -lie had no meaning at all. Uhler (1926) based his argumentation on Old English texts. In different manuscripts of the same texts, or in the same contexts, adjectives with or without -lie are often used interchangeably. For instance, the kingdom of heaven is sometimes heofoncund rice and sometimes heofoncundlic rice', God (the high king) may be heah cyning or healic cyning; etc. The material at Uhler's disposal did not allow him to trace any difference between simple adjectives and adjectives in -lie (the same is true of adverbs in -e and adverbs in -lice).
Available until 9 Dec |Learn more- Celia Kerslake, Aslı Göksel(Authors)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
With the exception of anti-, which has some degree of productivity, these prefixes occur only with loan words. Most of the words thus formed are stressed on the (first syllable of the) prefix. 8 INFLECTIONAL SuffixES Inflectional Suffixes indicate how the constituents of a sentence relate to each other, and express functional relations such as case, person and tense . In this chapter a description of the forms and attachment properties of these Suffixes is provided; for the meaning and usage of each Suffix, the reader is referred to the relevant chapters in Part 3 . In section 8.1 we discuss the inflectional Suffixes that attach to nominals, and in section 8.2 those that attach to verbs. Sections 8.3 and 8.4 focus on the copular markers and person markers, both of which can attach to nominals and to verbs. Section 8.5 explains the attachment properties of Suffixes that form subordinate clauses. 8.1 NOMINAL INFLECTIONAL SuffixES The Suffixes that attach to nominals are those marking number, possession and case. The only number Suffix is the plural Suffix -lAr . The possessive Suffixes indicate the person of the possessor. The order in which nominal inflectional Suffixes appear on the stem is number-possession-case (see 14.3.1.2 (38) for an exception): (1) çocuk -lar -ı n -a child -PL -2SG.POSS -DAT NUMBER POSSESSION CASE ‘to your children’ These forms can further be combined with the copular markers ( 8.3.2 ), -DIr ( 8.3.3 ) and person markers ( 8.4 ) to form predicates ( 12.1.1.2 ): (2) Ev -ler -imiz -de -ymi ş -ler. home -PL -1PL.POSS -LOC -EV.COP -3PL ‘Apparently they are/were at our homes.’ 8.1.1 THE PLURAL Suffix -lAr The Suffix -lAr ( 14.3.1.1 ) is used primarily to indicate plurality: köpek ler ‘dogs’, sul ar ‘[glasses, etc. of] water’, ş un lar ‘these’, sar ı lar ‘the yellow [ones’]; see 14.3.1.2 for other functions.
eBook - PDFLinguistics for Everyone
An Introduction
- Kristin Denham, Anne Lobeck(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
Bound morphemes, on the other hand, are morphemes that cannot stand alone and must be attached to another morpheme or word. Examples of bound morphemes include trans - and -mit in transmit , -ize in materialize , and un- in unhappy . Bound morphemes themselves come in different types: -ize is a Suffix, and un- is a prefix. Suffixes and prefixes fall under the more general heading of affixes , morphemes that attach to other morphemes or words by a process called affixation . Affixes Let’s take a look at affixes in more detail before we go on to discuss other types of bound morphemes. Some common examples of English prefixes and Suffixes are the following: prefixes : dis-, un-, for-, anti-, semi-, hyper-, in-, en-Suffixes: -ment, -ion, -er, -ing, -s, -able, -ize, -ship, -ity Another type of affix is an infix , an affix that attaches within a word root. The Inuktitut language of Western Canada, a member of the Eskimo-Aleut language family, has an infix, -pallia -, which must be inserted into a verb root, resulting in a distinct form of the verb. The rough translation of this infix is gradually . nungup + pallia + jut = nunguppalliajut ‘They are gradually disappearing’ ilinniaq + pallia + jugut = ilinniaqpalliajugut ‘We are gradually learning’ Although infixes occur in many other languages, there is only one basic type in English, expletive infixation . This infix has the effect of adding emphasis. The infix may only be inserted into words with more than two syllables, and it can range from the relatively tame gosh darn to the more powerful so-called F-word. In My Fair Lady , Eliza Doolittle sings about how nice it would be to sit abso-bloomin’-lutely still, where the infix is bloomin’ .
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