Semi-affixes

According to their meaning

According to the part of speech formed

According to their origin

According to their meaning

Affixation

Affixation is one of the most productive way in which new words have been made up.

It’s a formation of new words by adding derivational affixes to the stem.

Unlike root, affixes are always bound forms. The differemce between suffixes and prefixes is not only in their position, it also concerns their function and meaning.

Prefixes:

1) prefixation is mostly typical of verbs;

2) prefixes change the lexical meaning of the stem (write – rewrite);

3) only some prefixes change the part of speech formed (reach – to inreach).

Suffixes:

1) suffixation is mostly typical of nouns and adjectives;

2) suffixes also change the lexical meaning of words (help – helpless);

3) the majority of suffixes change the part of speech formed (black – to blacken); only some suffixes don’t change part of speech (brown – brownish, child – childhood), they transfer a word into another semantic group.

Prefixes is the way of word-building with help of prefixes. Prefixes may be classified on different principals:

1. according to their origin:

a) native

-after, -out, -mis, un-, over-, under- – unhappy, overfeed, undernourish;

b) foreign: latin: in, il, im, ir

greek: pre, post, super, sub, co, inter, extra, anti, ultra

negative: un, dis, non, in

of repetition: re

revesative: to button – to unbutton, to form – to deform, to populate – to depopulate, to connect – to disconnect

of time and order: pre / post, ex, after

perjorative: mal

locative: super, sub, inter, over, trans

Suffixation is the way of word building with help of suffixes. Suffixes may be classified:

native: ness, ish, dom, hood, ing

foreign: ist, ism, atiom, ment, able

noun-forming: er, dom, ation, ist, ism, ment, ee, ss

adj-forming: able, less, ful, ic, ous, ish, ative

adverb-forming: ly, ward

verb-forming: en, fy, ize, ate

1) noun suffixes

*agent, profession, occupation: ist, er, eer

*appurtinance (принадлежность): an, ian, ees

*callactivity: dom, hood

* abstract ideas: ship, ment, tion, hood, th

2) adj-suffixes

* presence or absense of quality: ful, able, ous, less

There are cases when it’s rather difficult to draw a line between roots and affixes. There’re a few roots in english whch have developed great combining ability in the position of the 2^nd element of a word anda very general meaning similar to that of an affixe. These are called semi-affixes. They recieve this name because sementiccaly, structurally and functionaly they behave more like affixes than like roots. Their meaning is very general. They determine lexico-grammatical class, the word belongs to. The most common semi-affixes are:

- half (half – halfdone)

- man (man – policeman)

- well (well – well-done)

- ill (ill – ill-dressed)

- self (self – selfportrait)

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11