5. Morphological structure of English words

1. Classification of suffixes

2. Prefixes and their function

3. The etymology of suffixes

4. Hybrids

I

Depending on the purpose of the research, various classi8fications of suffixes have been used and suggested. They have been classified according to their origin, parts of speech they served to form, their frequency, productivity and other characteristics.

Within the parts of speech suffixes have been classified according to lexico-grammatical groups, semantically, according to the types of stems they are added to.

Noun-forming suffixes:

-age (bondage, breakage); -ance/-ence (assistance, experience); -ancy/-ency (vacancy, tendency); -ant/ent; -ee (employee); -er (writer, teacher); -ese (journalese); -ess (actress, lioness); -hood (childhood); -ing (building, washing); -ion/-sion/-tion/-ation (creation, tension, explanation); -ism/-icism (communism, criticism); -ist (novelist, communist); -ment (government, nourishment); -ness (tenderness); -ship (friendship); -ty (honesty).

Adjective-forming suffixes:

-able/-ible/-uble (unbreakable, audible, soluble); -al (formal); -ic (public); -ical (ethical); -ant/-ent (repentant, dependent); -ary (revolutionary); -ate/-ete (accurate, complete); -ed/-d (wooded); -ful (delightful); -ian (Australian); -ish (Irish, reddish); -ive (active); -less (useless); -like (lifelike); -ly (mainly); -ous/-ious (tremendous, curious); -some (tiresome); -y (cloudy).

Numeral suffixes:

-fold (twofold); -teen (fourteen); -th (seventh); -ty (sixty).

Verb-forming suffixes:

-ate (facilitate); -er (glimmer); -en (shorten); -fy/-ify (terrify, speechify, solidify); -ize (equalize); -ish (establish).

Adverb-forming suffixes:

-ly (coldly); -ward/-wards (upward, northwards); -wise (likewise).

If we change our approach and become interested in the lexico-grammatical meaning the suffixes serve to signalize, we obtain within each part of speech more detailed lexico-grammatical classes or subclasses.

A lexico-grammatical class may be defined as a class of lexical elements possessing the same lexico-grammatical meaning and a common system of forms in which the grammatical categories inherent in these units are expressed. The elements of one class are characterized by a certain morphological structure and are substituted by the same prop-words.

E.g. If we take nouns, they can be divided into proper and common. Among common nouns we shall distinguish personal names, names of other animate beings, collective nouns, falling into several minor groups, material nouns, abstract nouns and names of things.

E.g. Abstract nouns are signaled by the following suffixes: -age, -ance/-ence, -ancy/-ency, -dom, -hood etc.

Personal nouns are emotionally neutral occur with the following suffixes: -an, -ian, -ant/-ent etc.

II

Derivational morphemes affixed before the stem are called prefixes. They modify the lexical meaning of the stem, but in so doing they seldom affect its basic lexico-grammatical component. Both the simple word and its prefixed derivative mostly belong to the same part of speech.

E.g. the prefix mis- when added to verb, conveys the meaning of “wrongly”, “badly”, “unfavourably”, but it does not suggest any other part of speech but the verb (behave – misbehave; inform- misinform; lead – mislead). These oppositions are strictly proportional semantically.

The semantic effect of a prefix may be termed adverbial because it modifies the idea suggested by the stem for manner, time, place, degree and so on.

A few examples will prove the point:

The prefix pre- and post- refer to time, mis- shows the manner of action;

The group of negative prefixes is so numerous that some scholars even find it convenient to classify prefixes into negative and non-negative ones. They are: de-, dis-, in-/im-/il-/ir-/un-.

The majority of prefixes affect only the lexical meaning of words but there are some important cases where prefixes serve to form words belonging to different parts of speech as compared with the original word.

These are the verb-forming prefixes be- and en-. Be- forms transitive verbs with adjective and noun stems and changes intransitive verbs into transitive ones.

Examples are: belittle (v) “to make little”, becloud (v) “to cover with clouds”, befriend (v) “to treat like a friend”.

Also such prefixes as en-/em-, a-, pre-, post- are used to form verbs from noun stems.

III

From the point of view of etymology affixes are subdivided into two main classes: the native affixes and the borrowed affixes.

By the native affixes we mean those that existed in English in the OE period or were formed from the OE words (a bound form may be developed from a free one. It may be illustrated by such suffixes as –dom, -hood, -lock, -ful, -less,- like, -ship. E.g. ME dom < OE dom “fate”

OE hod (hood ME) – “state”

The most important native suffixes are: -d, -dom, -ed, -en, -fold, -ful, -hood, -ing, -ish, -less, -let, -like, -lock, -ly, -ness, -oc, -red, -ship, -some, -teen, -th, -ward, -wise, -y.

The suffixes of foreign origin are classified according to their source into Latin (-able/-ible, -ant/-ent, -ard, -ate, -sy), French (-age, -ance/-ence, -ancy/-ency), Greek (-ist, -ism, -ite).

The term borrowed affixes is not very exact as affixes are never borrowed as such, but only as parts of loan words. To enter the morphological system of the English language a borrowed affix has to satisfy certain conditions: if the number of words containing it is considerable, if its meaning and function are definite and clear enough, and if its structural pattern corresponds to the structural patterns already existing in the language.

If these conditions are fulfilled the foreign affix may even be productive.