§3. Affixation

There are two major types of word-building affixes in English and Russian:

• prefixes, that is, affixes which occur before the root of a word: re-team, miscommunication, hypermarket; влёт, прилиз, пропутинский;

• suffixes, which occur after the root: rankler, ranklee, shopin, donkey-philes, собачище, мамонтёнок.

A third possible type of affix, infix, occurring within the root, is not used frequently either in English or in Russian. In the Russian language, linguists also single out postfixes, such as affixes after the ending, e.g., -ся (разрастаются).¹⁹²

English does not have affixes in large numbers – only about 50 common prefixes [including international ones, like a- (amoral), pro- (prosocialist), auto- (autobiography), non- (nonfan), etc.], and somewhat fewer suffixes.¹⁹³In Russian, affixation is a predominant way of making new words.

Russian prefixes are most typical of verbs,¹⁹⁴as they help to specify an aspect modification of the action:вмять, измять, намять, помять, подмять, примять, размять. In English, these verbs mean respectively to dent, rumple, beat, muss, crush, trample down, mash.

Russian suffixes, on the other hand, prevail with nouns and adjectives.¹⁹⁵New words in Russian are most frequently formed with the help of suffixes.¹⁹⁶The most productive are expressive suffixes of subjective estimate¹⁹⁷: diminutive(домик), pejorative (домишко), and exaggerative (домище).

Since English words are not regularly formed with expressive suffixes, these words are not normally given in the dictionary. To find an equivalent to a word, it is necessary to look up a derivative’s stem (лебедушка → лебед- → лебедь). In the text translated into English, the expressive meaning of the suffix is often lost, since its preservation may have an odd impact on the English-speaking receptor, who is unaccustomed to such an abundance of expressive suffixes. We can illustrate this with a short extract from V. Arsenyev: День склонялся к вечеру. По небу медленно ползли легкие розовые облачка. – Evening was near, and light pink clouds crept slowly across the sky. (Transl. by V. Shneerson)

If a word with a subjective suffix, in fact, has a connotative meaning, which should be rendered in translation, this meaning is compensated by an expressive adjective: И до фронта ведь не дошла лошаденка-то…- Never got as far as the front, poor thing. Людей тут скоро без разбору, а он над лошаденкой… - They’ll soon be slaughtering us, all and sundry, out there and he sits crying over a bloody horse! (Ю.Бондарев. Transl. by S. Vasilyev) When a Russian suffix bears an expressive connotation, it may also be compensated by other expressive means, such as synonymous condensation (Добренькими хотите быть? – Do you want to be kind and gentle?) or any other.

In translating from English into Russian a translator should be aware of the possible usage of words with diminutive suffixes. In Russian, they are proper when depicting discourse with a child, when showing the small size of an object, when expressing a friendly relation towards an interlocutor.

An extract from Milne’s Winnie-the-Poor can serve as an example: …Piglet looked up and said in his squeaky voice, “What about me?” “My dear Piglet,” I said, the whole book is about you.” In the English text, the author, telling the story to a kid, uses the diminutive suffix only in the name of the character (Piglet). In the Russian translation, the translators T. Vorogushina and L. Lisitskaya, used two more suffixed words, quite to the point: Пятачок посмотрел и проговорил своим писклявым голоском: “А как же Я?” “Мой дорогой Пятачок, - сказал я, - вся книжка о тебе.”

A collocation of a noun and the adjective little can also point to the need of a diminutive or pejorative suffix: First they went to a little restaurant near some railroad tracks. (J.Oats) – Сперва они пошли в ресторанчик возле железной дороги. (Tr. by N. Gal and R. Oblonskaya); On a porch two withered little women watched them. – С одного крыльца на них смотрели две маленькие старушонки. The attribute withered shows an attitude of disrespect toward the two women, which is emphasized in Russian by the suffix – онк-.