Some productive affixes

Workshop # 7

Stylistic aspects of word formation

Problem question:

1. What are wide spread word formation models?

2. What words have sound organization in word formation?

3. What features does affixation have?

4. What parts of speech are predominantly used as compound words?

5. How many types are in the abbreviations?

6. Speak on the way of conversion in word formation?

7. What is the semantic structure of composites (syntactical word)?

Word-Building

By word-building are understood processes of producing new words from the resources of this particular language. Together with borrowing, word-building provides for enlarging and enriching the vocabulary of the language.

If viewed structurally, words appear to be divisible into smaller units which are called morphemes. Morphemes do not occur as free forms but only as constituents of words. Yet they possess meanings of their own.

All morphemes are subdivided into two large classes: roots (or radicals) and affixes. The latter, in their turn, fall into prefixes which precede the root (re-read, mis-pronounce) and suffixes which follow the root (teach-er, dict-ate).

Words which consist of a root and an affix (or several affixes) are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word-building known as affixation (or derivation).

Derived words are extremely numerous in the English vocabulary. Successfully competing with this structural type is the so-called root word which has only a root morpheme in its structure. This type is widely represented by a great number of words belonging to the original English stock or to the earlier borrowings.(house, room, book, table, etc.), and, in Modern English, has been greatly enlarged by the type of word-building called conversion (e.g. to hand v. formed from the noun hand; to can v. from can n.).

Another wide-spread word-structure is a compound word consisting of two or more stems (stem is part of the word consisting of a root and an affix. In English words “stem” and “root” often coincide). E.g. dining-room, bluebell, mother-in-law, good-for-nothing (негодяй, бездельник). Words of this structural type are produced by the word-building process called composition.

The somewhat odd-looking words like flu (from influenza – грипп), pram (from perambulater – детская коляска), lab (from laboratory), M.P. (from Member of Parliament), H-bomb are called shortenings, contractions or curtailed words and are produced by the way of word-building called shortening (contraction).

The four types (root words, derived words, compounds, shortenings) represent the main structural types of Modern English words, and conversion, derivation and composition – the most productive ways of word-building.

2.Affixation (or Derivation)

The process of affixation consists in containing 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 frequent native suffixes

Noun-forming: -er: worker, miner, teacher, etc.

-ness: coldness, loneliness, etc.

-ing: feeling, singing, reading, etc.

-dom: freedom, wisdom, kingdom, etc.

Adjective-forming: -ful: careful, joyful, wonderful, etc.

-less: careless, sleepless, senseless, etc.

-y: tidy, cozy, merry, snowy

-ish: English, reddish, childish

-ly: lonely, lovely, ugly

-en: wooden, silken, golden

Verb-forming: -en widen, darken, redden

Adverb-forming: -ly warmly, hardly, simply, carefully

Borrowed suffixes, especially of Roman origin are numerous in the English vocabulary. It would be wrong 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.

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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. The latter are usually formed on the level of living speech and reflect the most productive and progressive patterns in word-building. The adjectives thinnish and baldish are examples of nonce-words coined on the current pattern of Modern English. They bring in mind dozens of other adjectives made with the same suffix: oldish, youngish, yellowish, etc. proving that the suffix –ish is a live and active one.

One should not confuse the productivity of affixes with their frequency of occurrence. There are quite a number of high-frequency affixes which are no longer used in word-derivation (e.g. the adjective-forming native suffixes –ful, -ly; the adjective-forming suffixes of Latin origin –ant,-ent, -al which are quite frequent).

Some productive affixes

Noun-forming suffixes -er (trainer, leader), -ing (dying, building), -ness (coldness, fairness), -ism (materialism), -ist (impressionist)

Adjective-forming suffixes -y (angry, merry), -ish (oldish, lookish),

-ed (learned), -able (capable)

Adverb-forming suffixes -ly (coldly, simply)

Verb-forming suffixes -ize/-ise (realize)

Prefixes un- (unhappy), re- (reconstruct), dis- (disappoint)