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In grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an affix which is placed at the end of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs.
Suffixes can carry grammatical information (inflectional suffixes), or lexical information (derivational suffixes). An inflectional suffix is sometimes called a desinence.[1]
Some examples from English:
- Girls, where the suffix -s marks the plural.
- He makes, where suffix -s marks the third person singular present tense.
- He closed, where the suffix -d marks the past tense.
A large number of endings are found in many synthetic languages such as Czech, German, Finnish, Latin, Hungarian, Russian, etc.
Suffixes used in English frequently have Greek, French or Latin origins.
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Inflectional suffixes
Inflection changes grammatical properties of a word within its syntactic category. In the example:
- The weather forecaster said it would clear today, but it hasn't cleared at all.
the suffix -ed inflects the root-word clear to indicate past tense.
Some inflectional suffixes in present day English:
- -s third person singular present
- -ed past tense
- -ing progressive/continuous
- -en past participle
- -s plural
- -en plural (irregular)
- -er comparative
- -est superlative
- -n't negative[2]
Derivational suffixes
In the example:
- "The weather forecaster said it would be clear today, but I can't see clearly at all"
the suffix -ly modifies the root-word clear from an adjective into an adverb. Derivation can also form a semantically distinct word within the same syntactic category. In this example:
- "The weather forecaster said it would be a clear day today, but I think it's more like clearish!"
the suffix -ish modifies the root-word clear, changing its meaning to "clear, but not very clear".
Some derivational suffixes in present day English:
- -ize/-ise
- -fy
- -ly
- -able
- -ful
- -ness
- -ism
- -ment
- -ist
- -al
References
- ^ The Free Online Dictionary
- ^ Zwicky, Arnold M. & Pullum, Geoffrey K. (1983), "Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n't", Language 59(3): 502-513, <http://www.stanford.edu/~zwicky/ZPCliticsInfl.pdf>
See also
- Affix
- Inflection
- Derivation (linguistics)
- Lexeme
- Marker (linguistics)
- Morpheme
- Prefix morpheme
- Category:Suffixes
External links
- online reference for prefixes and suffixes
- Comprehensive list of suffixes
- Extensive list of prefixes and root words
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Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 5 October 2008, at 05:32.
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