Lecture 5 Affixation. Conversion. Shortening

The process of affixation consists in coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to some root morpheme. The role of the affix in this procedure is very important and therefore it is necessary to consider certain facts about the main types of affixes.

From the etymological point of view affixes are clas­sified into the same two large groups as words: native and borrowed.

Some Native Suffixes

Noun-forming	-er	worker, miner, teacher, painter, etc.
	-ness	coldness, loneliness, loveliness, etc.
	-ing	feeling, meaning, singing, reading, etc.
	-dom	freedom, wisdom, kingdom, etc.
	-hood	childhood, manhood, motherhood, etc.
	-ship	friendship, companionship, mastership, etc.
	-th	length, breadth, health, truth, etc.
Adjective-forming	-ful	careful, joyful, wonderful, sinful, skilful, etc.
	-less	careless, sleepless, cloudless, senseless, etc.
	-y	cozy, tidy, merry, snowy, showy, etc.
	-ish	English, Spanish, reddish, childish, etc.
	-ly	lonely, lovely, ugly, likely, lordly, etc.
	-en	wooden, woollen, silken, golden, etc.
	-some	handsome, quarrelsome, tiresome, etc.
Verb-forming	-en	widen, redden, darken, sadden, etc.
Adverb-forming	-ly	warmly, hardly, simply, carefully, coldly, etc.

Borrowed affixes, especially of Romance origin are numerous in the English vocabulary. It would be wrong, though, to suppose that affixes are borrowed in the same way and for the same reasons as words. An af­fix of foreign origin can be regarded as borrowed only after it has begun an independent and active life in the recipient language, that is, is taking part in the word-making processes of that language. This can only occur when the total of words with this affix is so great in the recipient language as to affect the native speakers' sub­consciousness to the extent that they no longer realize its foreign flavour and accept it as their own.

Affixes can also be classified into productive and non-productive types. By productive affixes we mean the ones, which take part in deriving new words in this particular period of language development. The best way to identify productive affixes is to look for them among neologisms and so-called nonce-words, i.e. words coined and used only for this particular occa­sion.

Some Productive Affixes

Noun-forming suffixes	-er, -ing, -ness, -ism (materi­alism), -ist (impressionist), -ance
Adjective-forming suf­fixes	-y, -ish, -ed (learned), -able, -less
Adverb-forming suffixes	-ly
Verb-forming suffixes	-ize/-ise (realize), -ate
Prefixes	un- (unhappy), re- (recon­struct), dis- (disappoint)

Some Non-Productive Affixes

Noun-forming suffixes	-th, -hood
Adjective-forming suffixes	-ly, -some, -en, -ous
Verb-forming suffix	-en

Note. The native noun-forming suffixes -dom and -ship ceased to be productive centuries ago. Yet, Professor I. V. Arnold in The English Word gives some examples of comparatively new formations with the suffix -dom: bore­dom, serfdom, slavedom. The same is true about -ship (e. g. salesmanship). The adjective-forming -ish, which leaves no doubt as to its productivity nowadays, has compar­atively recently regained it, after having been non-produc­tive for many centuries.

There are numerous derived words whose meanings can really be easily deduced from the meanings of their constituent parts. Yet, such cases represent only the first and simplest stage of semantic readjustment with­in derived words. The constituent morphemes within derivatives do not always preserve their current mean­ings and are open to subtle and complicated semantic shifts.

Let us take at random some of the adjectives formed with the same productive suffix -y, and try to deduce the meaning of the suffix from their dictionary defini­tions:

brainy (inform.) — intelligent, intellectual, i. e. characterized by brains

catty — quietly or slyly malicious, spiteful, i. e. characterized by features ascribed to a cat

chatty — given to chat, inclined to chat

dressy (inform.) — showy in dress, i. e. inclined to dress well or to be overdressed

fishy (e. g. in a fishy story, inform.) — improbable, hard to believe (like stories told by fishermen)

foxy— foxlike, cunning or crafty, i. e. character­ized by features ascribed to a fox

stagy — theatrical, unnatural, i. e. inclined to affec­tation, to unnatural theatrical manners

touchy — apt to take offence on slight provocation, i. e. resenting a touch or contact (not at all inclined to be touched).