Affixetion

Word buildig is one of the main ways of enriching vocabulary. There are four main ways of word building in modern English; affixation, coversion, composition, abbreviation.

Affixation The process of affixation consists in coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to some root morpheme.

Affixation Prefxation Suffixation

We can distinguish words due to a morphological structure Words which consist of a root are called root words: house, room, book, work, port, street, table, etc.

We can distinguish words due to a morphological structure Words which consist of a root and an affix (or several affixes) are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word-building known as affixation (or derivation) : re-read, mis-pronounce, un-well, teach-er.

We can distinguish words due to a morphological structure Сompound-derivatives are words in which the structural integrity of the two free stems is ensured by a suffix referring to the combination as a whole, not to one of its elements: kind-hearted, old-timer, schoolboyishness, teenager.

The role of the affix in this procedure is very important and therefore it is necessary to consider certain facts about the main types of affixes. From the etymological point of view affixes are classified into the same two large groups as words: native and borrowed.

Some Native Suffixes Noun- forming -erworker, miner, teacher, painter, etc. -ness coldness, loneliness, loveliness, etc. -ing feeling, meaning, singing, reading, etc. -dom freedom, wisdom, kingdom, etc. -hood childhood, manhood, motherhood, etc. -ship friendship, companionship, mastership, etc. -th length, breadth, health, truth, etc.

Some Native Suffixes Adjective- forming -ful careful, joyful, wonderful, sinful, skilful, etc. -less careless, sleepless, cloudless, senseless, etc. -ycozy, tidy, merry, snowy, showy, etc. -ish English, Spanish, reddish, childish, etc. -lylonely, lovely, ugly, likely, lordly, etc. -enwooden, woollen, silken, golden, etc. -somehandsome, quarrelsome, tiresome, etc.

Some Native Suffixes Verb-forming -enwiden, redden, darken, sadden, etc. Adverb- forming -ly warmly, hardly, simply, carefully, coldly, etc.

An affix of foreign origin can be regarded as borrowed only after it has begun an independent and active life in the recipient language and it is taking part in the word-making processes of that language. This can only occur when the total of words with this affix is so great in the recipient language as to affect the native speakers' subconscious to the extent that they no longer realize its foreign flavour and accept it as their own.

By productive affixes we mean the ones, which take part in deriving new words in this particular period of language development. The best way to identify productive affixes is to look for them among neologisms and so-called nonce-words. The adjectives thinnish (жидковатый) and baldish (лысоватый) bring to mind dozens of other adjectives made with the same suffix: oldish (староватый), youngish (моложавый), mannish (мужеподобная), girlish (женоподобный), longish (длинноватый), yellowish (желтоватый), etc. The same is well illustrated by the following popular statement: "/ don't like Sunday evenings: I feel so Mondayish". (Чу́вствующий лень по́сле воскре́сного о́тдыха)

One should not confuse the productivity of affixes with their frequency of occurrence. There are quite a number of high-frequency affixes which, nevertheless, are no longer used in word- derivation e. g. the adjective-forming native suffixes -ful, -ly; the adjective-forming suffixes of Latin origin -ant, -ent, -al which are quite frequent

Some Productive Affixes Noun-forming suffixes -er, -ing, -ness, -ism(materialism), -ist(impressionist), -ance Adjective-forming suffixes-y, -ish, -ed (learned), -able, -less Adverb-forming suffixes -ly Verb-forming suffixes-ize/-ise (realise), -ate Prefixes un- (unhappy), re- (reconstruct), dis- (disappoint)

Some Non-Productive Affixes Noun-forming suffixes -th, -hood Adjective-forming suffixes -ly, -some, -en, -ous Verb-forming suffix -en