Questions tagged [affixes]
A grammatical morpheme that must be attached to a host word of an appropriate kind.
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How to create a generic model for terms that works cross-linguistically?
I am thinking how to create a "dictionary term" data model, and notice I don't have a real clear definition of a "term" which works across languages. Focusing on a "term" ...
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Are inflectional morphemes considered affixes in English?
From what I remember to have learned in SPANISH, which is my mother tongue, affixes just refer to derivational morphemes such as suffixes and prefixes which can change the meaning of words when added ...
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Do Turkish sentences have to ever "fall back" to using extra words instead of using suffixes?
I just was thinking about how you might run into problems (in a language like English), where using affixes break down because they are too simplistic (they are used for the common/simple case ...
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Do each intensive prefix intensify a verb uniquely and differently from other intensive prefixes?
Please feel free to emend this if I have not described my question cogently. Though knowing little of Latin, I have exemplified with it because I have encountered it more than Ancient Greek.
For ...
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What linguistic sources discuss doubled -ed in -edly and -edness words?
Some linguists have written analyses of "double -er suffixation" in English, in formations from particle verbs such as fix up > fixer upper. For example: "Double -er suffixation in ...
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What is the function of "-ter" in words "laughter" and "daughter"?
The word "laugh" exists in English, but not "*daugh", even though both have a -ter word and their forms are similar.
I can't find the function of the morpheme "-ter" here,...
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The affixation differentiating between nominal arithmetic and adjectival arithmetic
Since a suprafix can be the change of stress somewhere in the word (or other suprasegmental elements), and since accentuation plays a role in differentiating the noun arithmetic from the adjective ...
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The classification of morphemes
I have seen conflicting charts and models of morphemes. Here's how I understand it.
Free morphemes do not require other morphemes to make sense. That means that all free morphemes are words. Content ...
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Why are some Old English suffixes marked with a preceding asterisk?
Saw this answer on ELU and it has two Old English suffixes that are written with a preceding asterisk:
(from the addition of an *-ian verb- forming suffix in Germanic), as well as strong/ strength ...
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Roots categorization
I'm computationally working on an agglutinative language, a morphological analyser. The thing is that roots can form verbs (not all) but some roots like lüg 'white' is classified as Adjective if it is ...
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Why is direct affix borrowing generally thought to be impossible?
F. Seifart (Seifart, 2015) says:
"a widespread assumption in the language contact literature is that
affixes are never borrowed directly, but only indirectly, that is, as
part of complex ...
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What part of speech is a phoneme?
I wanted to know what part of speech a phoneme might be or I wanted to know if a phoneme might be a part of speech and I wanted to know if a phoneme can be an affix. I also wanted to know what a ...
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Terminology for this kind of affixes
I was solving an IOL sample exercise (which can be found here) about the Aymara language. I did it, it was kinda hard but I did it. One of the words in it was challwampiwa.
The first part (challwa) ...
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Can words be formed by deriving from just prefix(es) and suffix(es) with no actual root morpheme between?
I was just looking at a Zulu word entry in Wiktionary that implied it was made from a prefix and a suffix, but there was nothing between them.
Now this could just be sloppy editing of Wiktionary but ...
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What are some of the most prefixing languages?
Turkish is commonly cited as an example of a language which is, with only one or two quirky exceptions, exclusively suffixing. Cross-linguistically, suffixing is much commoner than prefixing and I ...
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Is the {-ing} of the gerund a verbal inflectional suffix?
Is the {-ing} of a gerund a verbal inflectional suffix or a nominal derivational one?
For instance, in the sentence Swimming is a great hobby. , swimming is a gerund and it has the syntactical role of ...
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How did the prefix 'be-' function in 'behind'?
behind (adv.)
Old English behindan "behind, after,"
from bi "by" + hindan "from behind" (see hind (adj.)).
hindan already meant "from behind", and It doesn't make sense to say: by from ...
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verbal or adjectival suffix -ed in the word "excited"
is the suffix -ed verbal or adjectival in the sentence:
I was excited about my new job.
Would the answer be different if the sentence was:
I was excited by my new job.
Maybe by indicates that ...
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Where did Irish "-acht" come from?
Modern Irish has a suffix -acht (allomorphs -ocht, -eacht, -cht, probably others) that forms abstract nouns. For example, beo "alive" → beocht "life, vital spirit".
Since we also see Scottish Gaelic -...
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What exactly is the "i" in iPad, iPhone, iMac etc. linguistically speaking?
You might ask now:
What does the "i" stand for?
Well, according to the following article
http://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/2009/01/the-i-in-iphone.html
the "i" was originally meant to stand for "...
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How to learn more about contradictory or superfluous affixes efficiently?
Instead of questioning each word's prefixes, how can I learn more productively?
E.g. I was researching the etymology of the French verb 'accabler':
[I quoted Wiktionary in French; the English ...
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is there "i" suffix that makes verb from noun, in latin or its ancestors? etymology of tio(n) suffix [closed]
Wiktionary says on PIE -h₃onh₂-:
Descendants
Italic:
...
Latin: -iō (from *-i-h₃onh₂-) (e.g. legiō (“group of selected people”))
Latin: -ō (e.g. Nāsō (“having a conspicuous nose”), poss. ...
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Are the inflectional endings in English known to have evolved from separate words or do they go too far back into PIE to know?
English isn't a highly inflected language, but it did evolve from one and still has at least: -s, -es; -ed, -ing; -er, -est; for nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
Do we know if these all evolved from ...
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Is the difference between analytic and agglutinative languages superficial? [duplicate]
Say you have a theoretical language which has verbs that are never inflected. If that verb appears, it will only appear in one form. Tense and such things are marked with particles that follow the ...
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Determining formative list of -ian and -ism
I'm new to Distributive Morphology and cannot find any resources of how to construct formative lists for morphemes. I know they're meant to be the feature bundles of the morphemes, but I don't really ...
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suffixoid vs null interfix
As written in Kremer, 1997 and Štekauer, 1995 words like ‘cat-like’
or ‘congressman’ etc. have what they call suffixoids or semiaffixes. IMO, it’s kind of a dull idea, because they look like ...
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Do "shew" and "eschew" come from the same root?
If so, are they antonyms or did one undergo a lexical shift to become the other? Also, is the /es-/ prefix used as a negator in any other English words, or is this case an exception?
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What are the criteria that distinguish clitics/particles from affixes?
This question inspired me to finally ask a question that has been bothering me for years: how does one distinguish clitics and/or particles from affixes, especially when those clitics are ...
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What explains the differences between doublet verbs that differ by a prefix?
The differences in meanings of doublet verbs such as 3-6 below:
Are there any resources that investigate the big picture behind them?
I abhor to memorise, and prefer to understand, such differences. ...
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Does '-ous' imply no interruption, and '-al' the possibility of interruption?
I already know that 'continuous' is stronger than continual, but that both derive from the same Latin etymon continuus. These answers on ELU evidence this difference, but does not explain the cause.
...
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Are there languages that form noun singulars by adding suffixes to plurals, rather than vice versa?
In languages that express grammatical number in nouns with suffixes, usually there is either a suffix added to an unsuffixed singular to form the plural (cat—cats), or the suffix (or inflectional ...
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Deceptive affix changes?
I exemplify with the following, but I ask this in general. How can I learn more about affixes that change meaning, especially those that are 'upended into' their antonyms?
For example, I was ...
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In case of Derivational nouns, what is the difference between affix polysemy and affix homonymy?
For derivational nouns, if we look at various properties of affixes, I understand they exhibit both affix polysemy and affix homonymy. By polysemy I understand that the the same affix is used in ...
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Can the prefix re- be added to nouns?
I am a little confused about what affix to add first to the stem "elect". The word is re-election. If I add the suffix -ion first, then it turns the verb into a noun. The affix 're-' attaches best to ...
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What is an affix called that is interlocked?
Wikipedia mentions 4 subgroups of affixes:
prefix, the affix is in front of the word
suffix, the affix is behind the word
infix, the affix is within the word
circumfix, the afix is separated into ...
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Do affixes and clitics belong to an own part of speech, part of sentence or another category ?
Birds, flowers, children belong to the part of speech of nouns,
to fish, to pick, to play to verbs,
swift, smelly, nice to adjectives
those are the easy ones, what about clitics and affixes and such ...
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-anus vs. -inus in (Classical) Latin
Latin has some suffixes that turn nouns into adjectives. But there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to which suffixes get applied to which nouns. For example:
felis->felinus
canis->caninus
...
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Are Japanese honorific お and ご prefixes, particles, or both?
In Japanese there are two morphemes which are used before certain nouns as part of the honorific system:
お (o)
ご (go)
Which terms can be used to refer to these out of "prefix" and "particle"?
I ...
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Agglutinative vs. Analytic. What's the difference?
First of all, I understand that these typological distinctions are not absolute and almost all languages show signs of almost all morphological strategies but most display a certain tendency towards ...
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What is the postfix that makes "figurine" diminutive of "figure"?
"figurine" means "little figure".
From etymonline:
figurine (n.) [Look up figurine at Dictionary.com]
1854, from French figurine (16c.), from Italian figurina, diminutive of figura, from ...
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Specifically in terms of nepomorpha, nepidae and further taxonomic classifications
I believe that the meaning of morpha is "form, like, kind". But where does the nepo prefix originate from? I seem to get a lot of terms like 'nepotism' in my searches, but I wonder how purely aquatic ...
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Which prefixing language has the most speakers?
Most if not all national or widely spoken languages with an inflecting or agglutinating typology do all of their inflecting at the end of the word. These are called "suffixing languages".
This is ...
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Is there any language that observe root changes in response to the addition of affixes?
If yes, what are the examples? What change patterns are exhibited?
*modified from Area51
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