linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, a suffix is an

affix In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. The main two categories are Morphological derivation, derivational and inflectional affixes. Derivational affixes, such as ''un-'', ''-ation' ...

which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...

of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the

conjugation Conjugation or conjugate may refer to: Linguistics *Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form *Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language Mathematics *Complex conjugation, the change o ...

of verbs. Suffixes can carry grammatical information (

inflection In linguistic Morphology (linguistics), morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical category, grammatical categories such as grammatical tense, ...

al endings) or lexical information ( derivational/lexical suffixes)''.'' Inflection changes the grammatical properties of a word within its

syntactic category A syntactic category is a syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume. Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech (e.g. noun, verb, preposition, etc.), are syntactic categories. In phrase structure grammars, the ''phrasa ...

. Derivational suffixes fall into two categories: class-changing derivation and class-maintaining derivation. Particularly in the study of

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian language ...

, suffixes are called affirmatives, as they can alter the form of the words. In

Indo-European studies Indo-European studies () is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical p ...

, a distinction is made between suffixes and endings (see

Proto-Indo-European root The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) are basic parts of words to carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots usually have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run". Roots never occurred alone in the langu ...

). A word-final segment that is somewhere between a free morpheme and a

bound morpheme In linguistics, a bound morpheme is a morpheme (the elementary unit of morphosyntax) that can appear only as part of a larger expression, while a free morpheme (or unbound morpheme) is one that can stand alone. A bound morpheme is a type of bound f ...

is known as a suffixoidKremer, Marion. 1997. ''Person reference and gender in translation: a contrastive investigation of English and German''. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, p. 69, note 11. or a semi-suffixMarchand, Hans. 1969. ''The categories and types of present-day English word-formation: A synchronic-diachronic approach''. Munich: Beck, pp. 356 ff. (e.g., English ''-like'' or German ''-freundlich'' "friendly").

Examples

English

:''Girls''—where the suffix ''-s'' marks the plurality. :''He makes''—where suffix ''-s'' marks the third person

singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, see List of animal names * Singular (band), a Thai jazz pop duo *'' Singula ...

present tense. :''It closed''—where the suffix ''-ed'' marks the

past tense The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...

. :''It's brighter''—where the suffix ''-er'' marks the

comparative The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...

French

:''De beaux jours''—where the suffix ''-x'' marks the

plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

. :''Elle est passablement jolie ''—where the suffix ''-e'' marks the

feminine Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...

form of the adjective.

German

:''mein Computer''—where the lack of suffixes is because its case, nominative, is "unmarked" :''meines Computers''—genitive case :''meinem Computer''—dative case :''meinen Computer''—accusative case

Russian

:''мой компьютер—''where the lack of suffixes is because its case, nominative, is "unmarked" :''моего компьютера''—genitive case :''моему компьютеру''—dative case :''мой компьютер''—accusative case :''за-туш-и-ть свечу''—where first word has -и- suffix, -ть ending (infinitive form); second word with ending -у (accusative case, singular, feminine). :'' добр-о-жел-а-тель-н-ый''—добр- root, -о- interfix, -жел- root, verbal -a- interfix, nominal -тель suffix, adjectival -н- suffix, adjectival -ый ending (nominative case, singular, masculine). :'' выда-ющ-ий-ся''—here suffix -ся (reflexive) is so-called postfix as it is placed after the adjectival ending.

Barngarla

:''wárraidya'' "

emu The emu (; ''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is a species of flightless bird endemism, endemic to Australia, where it is the Tallest extant birds, tallest native bird. It is the only extant taxon, extant member of the genus ''Dromaius'' and the ...

" — where the lack of suffixes is because its grammatical number, singular, is "unmarked" :''wárraidyalbili'' "two emus" — dual :''wárraidyarri'' "emus" — plural :''wárraidyailyarranha'' "a lot of emus", "heaps of emus" — superplural

Inflectional suffixes

Inflection In linguistic Morphology (linguistics), morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical category, grammatical categories such as grammatical tense, ...

changes the grammatical properties of a word within its

. In several languages, this is realized by an inflectional suffix, also known as desinence. In the example: :I was hoping the cloth wouldn't fade, but it has faded quite a bit. the suffix ''-d'' inflects the

root In vascular plants, the roots are the plant organ, organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often bel ...

-word ''fade'' to indicate past participle. Inflectional suffixes do not change the word class of the word after the inflection. Inflectional suffixes in Modern English include:

Verbs

*-s third person singular simple present indicative active * -ed past tense and past participle *-t past tense (weak irregular) *

-ing ''-ing'' is a suffix used to make one of the inflection, inflected forms of English verbs. This verb form is used as a present participle, as a gerund, and sometimes as an independent noun or adjective. The suffix is also found in certain words ...

present participle and gerund * -en

past participle In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...

(irregular)

Nouns

*-s plural number *-en plural number (irregular)

Adjectives and adverbs

*-er

degree *-est superlative degree

Derivation

Derivational suffixes can be divided into two categories: class-changing derivation and class-maintaining derivation. In English, they include * -ly (usually changes adjectives into adverbs, but also some nouns into adjectives) * -al / -ual (usually changes nouns into adjectives) * -ic / -ical (usually changes nouns into adjectives) * -ish (usually changes nouns into adjectives/class-maintaining, with the word class remaining an adjective) * -ful (usually changes nouns into adjectives) * -oid (usually changes nouns into adjectives) * -like (usually changes nouns into adjectives) * -less (usually changes nouns into adjectives) * -able/ -ible (usually changes verbs into adjectives) * -ant (usually changes verbs into nouns, often referring to a human agent) * -tion/ -ion/ -ation (usually changes verbs into nouns) * -ment (usually changes verbs into nouns) * -ity (usually changes adjectives into nouns) * -ness (usually changes adjectives into nouns) * -fy (usually changes nouns into verbs) * -ise/ -ize (usually changes nouns into verbs) * -ess (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun) *

-ism ''-ism'' () is a suffix in many English grammar, English words, originally derived from the Ancient Greek suffix ('), and reached English language, English through the Latin , and the French language, French . It is used to create abstract noun ...

(usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun) * -ist (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun) * -hood (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun) *

-logy ''-logy'' is a suffix in the English language, used with words originally adapted from Ancient Greek ending in ('). The earliest English examples were anglicizations of the French '' -logie'', which was in turn inherited from the Latin '' -l ...

/ -ology (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun) * -um (usually) museum; stadium; auditorium; aquarium; planetarium; medium * -wise From wīse ("manner, way, condition, direction")

Altered pronunciation in English

A suffix will often change the stress or accent pattern of a multi-syllable word, altering the phoneme pattern of the root word even if the root's morphology does not change. An example is the difference between "photograph" and "photography". In this case, the "-y" ending governs the stress pattern, causing the primary stress to shift from the first syllable ("pho-") to the antepenultimate ("-to-"). The unaccented syllables have their ordinary vowel sound changed to a schwa. This can be a particular problem for dyslexics, affecting their phonemic awareness,Dyslexia Help: Success Starts Here
. University of Michigan. as well as a hurdle for non-native speakers.

References

External links

*{{Commons category-inline, Suffixes Affixes Linguistics terminology English suffixes