An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may
be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and
past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable
affixes. Affixation is, thus, the linguistic process speakers use to form different words
by adding morphemes at the beginning, the middle or the end of words.
Positional categories of affixes Affixes are divided into plenty of categories,
depending on their position with reference to the stem. Prefix and suffix are extremely
common terms. Infix and circumfix are less so, as they are not important in European
languages. The other terms are uncommon. Prefix and suffix may be subsumed under the
term adfix in contrast to infix. When marking text for interlinear glossing,
as in the third column in the chart above, simple affixes such as prefixes and suffixes
are separated from the stem with hyphens. Affixes which disrupt the stem, or which themselves
are discontinuous, are often marked off with angle brackets. Reduplication is often shown
with a tilde. Affixes which cannot be segmented are marked with a back slash.
Lexical affixes Lexical affixes are bound elements that appear
as affixes, but function as incorporated nouns within verbs and as elements of compound nouns.
In other words, they are similar to word roots/stems in function but similar to affixes in form.
Although similar to incorporated nouns, lexical affixes differ in that they never occur as
freestanding nouns, i.e. they always appear as affixes.
Lexical affixes are relatively rare. The Wakashan, Salishan, and Chimakuan languages all have
lexical suffixes — the presence of these is an areal feature of the Pacific Northwest
of the North America. The lexical suffixes of these languages often
show little to no resemblance to free nouns with similar meanings. Compare the lexical
suffixes and free nouns of Northern Straits Saanich written in the Saanich orthography
and in Americanist notation: Lexical suffixes when compared with free nouns
often have a more generic or general meaning. For instance, one of these languages may have
a lexical suffix that means water in a general sense, but it may not have any noun equivalent
referring to water in general and instead have several nouns with a more specific meaning.
In other cases, the lexical suffixes have become grammaticalized to various degrees.
Some linguists have claimed that these lexical suffixes provide only adverbial or adjectival
notions to verbs. Other linguists disagree arguing that they may additionally be syntactic
arguments just as free nouns are and thus equating lexical suffixes with incorporated
nouns. Gerdts gives examples of lexical suffixes in the Halkomelem language:
In sentence, the verb "wash" is šak’ʷətəs where šak’ʷ- is the root and -ət and
-əs are inflectional suffixes. The subject "the woman" is łə słeniʔ and the object
"the baby" is łə qeq. In this sentence, "the baby" is a free noun.
In sentence, "baby" does not appear as a free noun. Instead it appears as the lexical suffix
-əyəł which is affixed to the verb root šk’ʷ-. Note how the lexical suffix is
neither "the baby" nor "a baby"; such referential changes are routine with incorporated nouns.
Orthographic affixes In orthography, the terms for affixes may
be used for the smaller elements of conjunct characters. For example, Maya glyphs are generally
compounds of a main sign and smaller affixes joined at its margins. These are called prefixes,
superfixes, postfixes, and subfixes according to their position to the left, on top, to
the right, or at the bottom of the main glyph. A small glyph placed inside another is called
an infix. Similar terminology is found with the conjunct consonants of the Indic alphabets.
For example, the Tibetan alphabet utilizes prefix, suffix, superfix, and subfix consonant
letters. See also
Agglutination Augmentative
Binary prefix Clitic
Combining form Concatenation
Derivation Diminutive
English prefixes Family name affixes
Internet-related prefixes Marker
Separable affix SI prefix
Stemming - affix removal using computer software Unpaired word
Word formation References
Bibliography Gerdts, Donna B.. "The morphosyntax of Halkomelem
lexical suffixes". International Journal of American Linguistics 69: 345–356. doi:10.1086/382736.
Montler, Timothy.. An outline of the morphology and phonology of Saanich, North
Straits Salish. Occasional Papers in Linguistics. Missoula, MT: University of Montana Linguistics
Laboratory. Montler, Timothy.. Saanich, North Straits
Salish classified word list. Canadian Ethnology service paper; Mercury series. Hull, Quebec:
Canadian Museum of Civilization. ISBN 0-660-12908-6 External links