Suffixation

Suffixation was by far the most productive means of word derivation in OE. Suffixes not only modified the lexical meaning of the word but could refer it to another part of speech. Suffixes were mostly applied in forming nouns and adjectives, seldom ─ in forming verbs.

Etymologically OE suffixes can be traced to several sources: old stem- suffixes, which had lost their productivity, but could still be distinguished in some words as dead or non-productive suffixes; derivational suffixes proper inherited from PIE and PG; new suffixes which devel­oped from root-morphemes in Late PG and OE in the course of morpho­logical simplification of the word.

The old stem-suffixes cannot be regarded as means of deri­vation in OE. They must have been productive at earlier stages of his­tory, probably in PG, and had left their traces in the morphological classes of nouns, verbs and adjectives. Their application in word deri­vation can be best shown in reconstructed, pre-written forms of weak verbs. Weak verbs of Class I were originally derived from nominal or verbal roots with the help of the stem-forming suffix -i/j-, e.g. *t el-i-an, *mōt-i-an, OE tellan, mētan ─ from the roots of OE talu, e-mot (At the pre-written stage both words ─ the noun and the verb ─ had stem-suf­fixes: talu was an ō -stem, mōt- an ā -stem, etc.); verbs of Class II were formed with the help of the most productive stem-suffix - ō -, or – ōj - e.g.: *hop-ō-jan, *luf-ō-jan, OE hopian, lufian from corresponding nouns hopa, lufu (NE tell, meet, hope, love).

The productivity of -ōj- in verb derivation is confirmed by the fact that Class II was the most numerous of all classes; verbs of this class continued to be formed in Early OE.

Most stem-suffixes had been lost by the age of writing; the surviving suffixes were dead or non-productive, e.g. -t in OE meaht (NE might). Suffixes are usually classified according to the part of speech which they can form. In OE there were two large groups of suffixes: suffixes of nouns and suffixes of adjectives. Noun suffixes are divided into suffixes of "agent nouns" ("nomina agentis") and those of abstract nouns.

Among the suffixes of “agent nouns” there were some dead, unproductive suffixes: -a, as in the Masc. a -stem hunta (NE hunter),

-end, originally the suffix of the Present Participle, e.g. OE frēond, fīend, h elend (NE friend, fiend, 'saviour'). -end in word-building was later replaced by -ere, a suffix of IE descent, whose productivity grew after the adoption of numerous Latin words with the same suffix, e.g. scōlere, sutere (NE scholar, 'shoemaker'). Some philologists believe that -ere in OE is a borrowed suffix, which was adopted in Latin loan-words. OE agent nouns in - ere were derived from nouns and verbs: bōcere, fiscere, leornere, b ecere, etc. (NE 'scribe', fisher, learner, baker).

The nouns in -ere were Masc.; the corresponding suffix of Fem. nouns

- estre was less common: b ecestre, spinnestre ('female baker', 'female spinner'). The suffix – in was used to build patronymics and to show the descent of a person, e.g.: Æpelwulfin ‘son of Æpelwulf’, Centin ‘a man coming from Kent’, cynin ‘head of clan or tribe’ ─ OE cynn ‘clan’.

Among suffixes of abstract nouns there were some survivals of old stem-suffixes and numerous later formations: the stem-suffix - t in meaht, siht or sihp (NE might, sight) was dead; -p reinforced by the addition of a vowel, was more alive: alongside - pu the element -p- appears in -op,

-ap, -up, e.g. pīefp (NE theft), huntop, fiscap, eo up ('hunting', 'fishing', 'youth'). Some nouns in -pu had a mutated root-vowel, prob­ably a trace of the earlier suffix -in, which caused the palatal mutation and was displaced by - p; cf., e.g. brād adj ─ br edu, br edpu (NE broad, breadth); lan ─ len pu (NE long─ length); stron - stren pu (NE strong, strength). Another productive suffix which formed abstract nouns from adjective stems was –nes/-nis: beorhtnes (NE brightness), blindnis (NE blindness), unrihtwīsnes ‘injustice’, druncennis (from Part. II druncen).

Another productive suffix, -ung/ing, was used to build abstract nouns from verbs (especially weak verbs), e.g. bodian ─ bodung ('preach, preaching'), earnian ─ earnung (NE earn, earning), wilnian ─ wilnung (‘desire’ v, n).

A most important feature of OE suffixation is the growth of new suffixes from root-morphemes. The second components of com­pound words turned into suffixes and the words were accordingly trans­formed from compound to derived. To this group belong OE -dōm, -hād, -lāc, -scipe,

-r eden. As compared with the same morphemes used as roots, the suffixes had a different ─ usually a more general ─ meaning. Thus, OE dōm as a noun meant 'judgement, choice', 'honour', while as a second affixal component it lost this lexical meaning to a varying extent, e.g.: frēodōm ‘free choice’, ‘freedom’ (NE freedom), wīsdōm 'wise judgement' (NE wisdom), crīstendōm 'Christianity', l ecedōm 'med­icine'. Likewise OE hād 'title' yielded words like cīldhād (NE childhood); the noun lāc 'gift' became a suffix in OE wedlāc (NE 'wedlock').

As long as the morpheme was used as the root of an independent word, the ties between the root and the new affix were still felt, and the transition into a suffix was not complete as was the case with -dōm; -hād and -lāc. If the word went out of use, the new affix was no longer associated with a root-morpheme and became an ordinary suffix. Thus

-scipe occurred only as a component part of abstract nouns ─ frēond-scipe (NE friendship), ebēorscipe 'feast', h epenscipe 'heathenism'. The growth of new suffixes from root-morphemes made up for the decline of the old system of stem-suffixes.

In the derivation of adjectives we find suffixes proper suchi as – i, -isc,

-ede, -sum, -en (from the earlier -in) and a group of morphemes of intermediate nature ─ between root and affix ─ like the noun suffixes described above. The suffixes with the element -i-, that is –isc, - i and

-en (-in) were often, though not always, accompanied by mutation. Adjectives were usually derived from nouns, rarely from verb stems or other adjectives. The most productive suffixes were –i, and -isc: mōdi ‘proud’ (from mōd, NE mood), hāli (NE holy), bysi (NE busy); mennisc 'human' (from man with the root-vowel [a]), En lisc, Denisc (NE English, Danish). Examples with other suffixes are: lan sum 'lasting' (from lan, NE long); hōcede 'curved, hooked' (from hōc, NE hook).

The productive adjective suffix -lic originated from the noun lic 'body', but had evidently lost all semantic ties with the latter. It could derive adjectives from nouns and other adjectives: sceandlic ‘disgraceful’ (from sceand 'disgrace'), woruldlic 'worldly' (from woruld, NE world), scearplic 'sharp' (from the adjective scearp), dēadlic (NE deadly), frēondlic (NE friendly), etc.

By adding another suffix -e the adjective was turned into an adverb: frēondlic ─ frēondlice 'friendly, in a friendly manner', wundorlic 'wonderful' ─ wundorlice 'wondrously'; also: heard adj ─ hearde adv (NE hard), lan adj ─ lan e adv (NE long). The use of -e after -lic was very common; thus -lice became a frequent component of adverbs and began to be applied as a suffix of adverbs, even if they were not derived from adjectives in -lic, e.g.: rot 'glad' adj ─ rotlice adv 'cheerfully', innweard 'deep' adj ─ innweardlice adv 'deeply' (NE inward). (Originally -e was the ending of the Instr. case of adjectives used in an adverbial function. The loss of -e has produced homonymous pairs in Mod E: hard adj ─ hard adv; the suffixes -lic and -lice were reduced to -ly, which is now both an adverb and an adjective suffix, cf.: deadly adj and meekly adv.)

The ties of the other new adjective suffixes with corresponding roots are more transparent: OE full was an adjective which yielded derived adjectives (or compounds) being attached to other stems, mostly those of abstract nouns: weorðfull 'illustrious' (lit. "full of worth''), carfull (NE careful), synnfull (NE sinful). The adjective lēas "deprived, bereft of employed as a suffix retained its meaning: sāwollēas 'lifeless, de­prived of soul', hlāfordlēas 'without a lord', sl eplēas (NE sleepless).

Verb suffixes were few and non-productive. They can be illus­trated by -s in cl ensian, a verb derived from the adjective cl ene (NE clean) and

-l ec in nēal ecan 'come near, approach' and efenl ecan, an impersonal verb meaning 'the approach of evening' (R вечереть).

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