CATATAN VOCABULARY

Morpheme

In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word, by definition, is a freestanding unit of meaning. Every word comprises one or more morphemes.

Example :

• "Unbreakable" comprises three morphemes: un- (a bound morpheme signifying "not"), -break- (the root, a free morpheme), and -able (a bound morpheme signifying "doable").
• Allomorphs of the plural morpheme for regular nouns: /s/ (e.g. in cats /kæts/), /ɨz/ (e.g. in dishes /dɪʃɨz/), and /z/ (e.g. in dogs /dɒɡz/).

Classification of morphemes

Free vs. bound

Every morpheme can be classified as either free or bound. These categories are mutually exclusive, and as such, a given morpheme will belong to exactly one of them.

• Free morphemes can function independently as words (e.g. town, dog) and can appear with other lexemes (e.g. town hall, doghouse).
• Bound morphemes appear only as parts of words, always in conjunction with a root and sometimes with other bound morphemes. For example, un- appears only accompanied by other morphemes to form a word. Most bound morphemes in English are affixes, particularly prefixes and suffixes. Bound morphemes that are not affixes are called cranberry morphemes, their nomenclature derived from the bound, non-affix function of cran- in the word cranberry.

Derivational vs. inflectional

Bound morphemes can be further classified as derivational or inflectional.

• Derivational morphemes, when combined with a root, change either the semantic meaning or part of speech of the affected word. For example, in the word happiness, the addition of the bound morpheme -ness to the root happy changes the word from an adjective (happy) to a noun (happiness). In the word unkind, un- functions as a derivational morpheme, for it inverts the meaning of the word formed by the root kind.
• Inflectional morphemes modify a verb's tense or a noun's number without affecting the word's meaning or class. Examples of applying inflectional morphemes to words are adding -s to the root dog to form dogs and adding -ed to wait to form waited.

 

 

More about Prefixes & Suffixes

Attaching Affixes to Base Words and Word Stems

What are Prefixes and Suffixes?

Prefixes and suffixes are grammatical and lingual "affixes." Prefixes are affixed before and suffixes after a base word or word stem to add information.  For example, with the word "prehistoric," the prefix is "pre-" meaning "before," the base word is "history" meaning "recorded events and knowledge", and the suffix is "-ic" meaning "relating to the science of."
In other words, "prefix" simply refers to an attachment before or in front of, in this case, a shorter word or stem. In lingual terms, a "stem" is the main part of a word to which prefixes and suffixes can be added and may not necessarily be a word itself, such as "dod" in "doddle."
Similarly, "suffix" refers to an attachment after the end of an existing word or stem, serving to form a new word or functioning as an inflectional ending, for example, “s” or “es” to make for plurality.

Is an Affix a Single Syllable?

No, a prefix or suffix can be one or more syllables, depending on the root word from Latin or Greek or from any one of a host of other English lingual influences.

Inflectional Suffixes

Are Endings such as "-ed," "-ing," and "-s" Suffixes?

Yes, endings that are create different forms of the same word are called "inflectional suffixes." There are very few inflectional suffixes but they occur rather frequently. They are:

-s, -es, -ies		plural
-s		3rd person singular present
-ed		past tense
-en		past participle
-en		plural (irregular)
-ing		progressive/continuous
-er		comparative
-est		superlative
-n't		negative (contraction)

 

Derivational Suffixes

Are Endings such as "-ism," "-ful," and "-fy" Suffixes?

Endings that change the meaning of the word are called "derivational suffixes." Some are:

-ism		forms a noun
-ist		noun
-ful		noun
-able		adjective
-ation		noun
-ness		noun
-ment		noun
-ify		verb
-fy		adjective
-ity		noun
-ly		adverb
-ise, -ize		verb

Derivational suffixes can combine, providing flexibility in creating other words, but such activity can lead to spelling complications. For example, "-ity" can combine with "-able," but the result is "-ability" (desirability, predictability), and when "-ly" is added to a word ending in "-ic" to make an adverb, the result is usually "-ically" (historically, mechanically).

Derivation (linguistics)

In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine. Derivation stands in contrast to the process of inflection, which uses another kind of affix in order to form grammatical variants of the same word, as with determine/determine-s/determin-ing/determin-ed.^[1] Generally speaking, inflection applies to all members of a part of speech (e.g., every English verb has a past-tense form), while derivation applies only to some members of a part of speech (e.g., the nominalizing suffix -ity can be used with the adjectives modern and dense, but not with open or strong).

A derivational suffix usually applies to words of one syntactic category and changes them into words of another syntactic category. For example, the English derivational suffix -ly changes adjectives into adverbs (slow → slowly).

Examples of English derivational patterns and their suffixes:

• adjective-to-noun: -ness (slow → slowness)
• adjective-to-verb: -ise (modern → modernise) in British English or -ize (archaic → archaicize) in American English and Oxford spelling
• adjective-to-adjective: -ish (red → reddish)
• adjective-to-adverb: -ly (personal → personally)
• noun-to-adjective: -al (recreation → recreational)
• noun-to-verb: -fy (glory → glorify)
• verb-to-adjective: -able (drink → drinkable)
• verb-to-noun (abstract): -ance (deliver → deliverance)
• verb-to-noun (concrete): -er (write → writer)

Although derivational affixes do not necessarily alter the syntactic category, they do change the meaning of the base. In many cases, derivational affixes change both the syntactic category and the meaning: modern → modernize ("to make modern"). The change of meaning is sometimes predictable: Adjective + ness → the state of being (Adjective); (white→ whiteness).

A prefix (write → re-write; lord → over-lord) will rarely change syntactic category in English. The inflectional prefix un- applies to adjectives (healthy → unhealthy)and some verbs (do → undo), but rarely to nouns. A few exceptions are the derivational prefixes en- and be-. En- (em- before labials) is usually used as a transitive marker on verbs, but can also be applied to adjectives and nouns to form transitive verbs: circle (verb) → encircle (verb); but rich (adj) → enrich (verb), large (adj) → enlarge (verb), rapture (noun) → enrapture (verb), slave (noun) → enslave (verb).

Note that derivational affixes are bound morphemes. In that respect, derivation differs from compounding by which free morphemes are combined (lawsuit, Latin professor). It also differs from inflection in that inflection does not create new lexemes but new word forms (table → tables; open → opened).

Derivation can occur without any change of form, for example telephone (noun) and to telephone. This is known as conversion or zero derivation.

Suffixes

A suffix is a group of letters placed at the end of a word to make a new word. A suffix can make a new word in one of two ways:

1. inflectional (grammatical): for example, changing singular to plural (dog > dogs), or changing present tense to past tense (walk > walked). In this case, the basic meaning of the word does not change.
2. derivational (the new word has a new meaning, "derived" from the original word): for example, teach > teacher or care > careful

Inflectional suffixes

Inflectional suffixes do not change the meaning of the original word. So in "Every day I walk to school" and "Yesterday I walked to school", the words walk and walked have the same basic meaning. In "I have one car" and "I have two cars", the basic meaning of the words car and cars is exactly the same. In these cases, the suffix is added simply for grammatical "correctness". Look at these examples:

suffix	grammatical change	example original word	example suffixed word
-s	plural	dog	dogs
-en	plural (irregular)	ox	oxen
-s	3rd person singular present	like	he likes
-ed	past tense past participle	work	he worked he has worked
-en	past participle (irregular)	eat	he has eaten
-ing	continuous/progressive	sleep	he is sleeping
-er	comparative	big	bigger
-est	superlative	big	the biggest

Derivational suffixes

With derivational suffixes, the new word has a new meaning, and is usually a different part of speech. But the new meaning is related to the old meaning - it is "derived" from the old meaning.
We can add more than one suffix, as in this example:

derive (verb) + tion = derivation (noun) + al = derivational (adjective)

There are several hundred derivational suffixes. Here are some of the more common ones:

suffix	making	example original word	example suffixed word
-ation	nouns	explore hesitate	exploration hesitation
-sion		persuade divide	persuasion division
-er		teach	teacher
-cian		music	musician
-ess		god	goddess
-ness		sad	sadness
-al		arrive	arrival
-ary		diction	dictionary
-ment		treat	treatment
-y		jealous victor	jealousy victory
-al	adjectives	accident	accidental
-ary		imagine	imaginary
-able		tax	taxable
-ly		brother	brotherly
-y		ease	easy
-ful		sorrow forget	sorrowful forgetful
-ly	adverbs	helpful	helpfully
-ize	verbs	terror private	terrorize privatize
-ate		hyphen	hyphenate

English prefixes

English prefixes are affixes (i.e., bound morphemes that provide lexical meaning) that are added before either simple roots or complex bases (or operands) consisting of (a) a root and other affixes, (b) multiple roots, or (c) multiple roots and other affixes. Examples of these follow:

• undo (consisting of prefix un- and root do)
• untouchable (consisting of prefix un-, root touch, and suffix -able)
• non-childproof (consisting of prefix non-, root child, and root proof)
• non-childproofable (consisting of prefix non-, root child, root proof, and suffix -able)

English words may consist of multiple prefixes: anti-pseudo-classicism (containing both an anti- prefix and a pseudo- prefix).

In English, all prefixes are derivational. This contrasts with English suffixes, which may be either derivational or inflectional.