Lexical Suffix

A Lexical Suffix is a stem that can be attached to the end of a lexical item (such as a base word).

• AKA: Postfix, Word Suffix.
• Example(s):
  • An Affix Morpheme.
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • an Affix.
  • See: Nominalization Operation, Inflexional Suffix, Derivational Suffix, Derivation (Linguistics), Stem (Linguistics), Grammatical Case, Grammatical Conjugation, Semitic Languages, Indo-European Studies, Proto-Indo-European Root, Inflection, Plural.

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References

• http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_words_by_suffix

2015

• (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/suffix Retrieved:2015-10-17.
  • In linguistics, a suffix (also sometimes termed postfix or ending or, in older literature, affix) is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Particularly in the study of Semitic languages, a suffix is called an afformative, as they can alter the form of the words. In Indo-European studies, a distinction is made between suffixes and endings (see Proto-Indo-European root). A word-final segment that is somewhere between a free morpheme and a bound morpheme is known as a suffixoid or a semi-suffix (e.g., English -like or German -freundlich 'friendly'). Suffixes can carry grammatical information (inflectional suffixes) or lexical information (derivational suffixes). An inflectional suffix is sometimes called a desinence. Some examples in European languages: :Girls, where the suffix -s marks the plural. :He makes, where suffix -s marks the third person singular present tense.

     :It closed, where the suffix -ed marks the past tense.

     :De beaux jours, where the suffix -x marks the plural.

     :Elle est passablement jolie, where the suffix -e marks the feminine form of the adjective.

    Many synthetic languages — Czech, German, Finnish, Latin, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, etc. — use a large number of endings.

    Suffixes used in English frequently have Greek, French, or Latin origins.

    Inflection changes the grammatical properties of a word within its syntactic category.

    In the example:

    :I was hoping the cloth wouldn't fade, but it has faded quite a bit.

    the suffix -ed inflects the root-word fade to indicate past tense.

    Inflectional suffixes do not change the word class of the word after inflection. Inflectional suffixes in modern English include:

    • -s third person singular present
    • -ed past tense
    • -t past tense
    • -ing progressive/continuous
    • -en past participle.
    • -s plural
    • -en plural (irregular)
    • -er comparative.
    • -est superlative.
    • -n't negative.
  • Derivational suffixes can be divided into two categories, namely class-changing derivation and class-maintaining derivation.

    Derivational suffixes in modern English include:

    • -ise/-ize (usually changes nouns into verbs)
    • -fy (usually changes nouns into verbs)
    • -ly (usually changes adjectives into adverbs)
    • -ful (usually changes nouns into adjectives)
    • -able/-ible (usually changes verbs into adjectives)
    • -hood (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)
    • -ess (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)
    • -ness (usually changes adjectives into nouns)
    • -less (usually changes nouns into adjectives)
    • -ism (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)
    • -ment (usually changes verbs into nouns)
    • -ist (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)
    • -al (usually changes nouns into adjectives)
    • -ish (usually changes nouns into adjectives/ class-maintaining, with the word class remaining an adjective)
    • -tion (usually changes verbs into noun)
    • -logy/-ology (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)

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