Word formation/Affixation (wikibooks)
Affixation is a process which involves adding bound morphemes to roots
which results in a newly-created derivative. Whereas we can distinguish
many types of this process, the English language generally makes use of
two — prefixation and suffixation. The first is characterised by adding a
morpheme that is placed before the base: mature — premature, do —
undo, affirm — reaffirm, function — malfunction. In contrast, suffixation
focuses on attaching a morpheme that rather follows the base than
proceeds it: read — reader, friend — friendship, manage — management.
What is also characteristic for this type of affixation is the fact that suffixes
can be stacked on one another — this does not happen when it comes to
prefixes: re-spect-ful-ness, friend-liness, un-help-ful-ness. It should be
noted that affixes are divided into two main categories: while some of them
are labelled as inflectional, a majority of them is known to be derivational.
Derivational affixes
Derivational affixes can change the word-class of the derivative and can be
either prefixes or suffixes — therefore they can produce new lexemes.
However, the meaning they carry is not always fixed — eg. X-ise carries
the meaning of either "put into X (computerise — 'put into a computer'),
make more X (modernise — 'make more modern' or provide with X
(brotherise — 'provide with a brother').
Inflectional affixes
Another type of affixes is labelled as inflectional. They differ from the other
type in the way that once attached, they will never change the word-class
of a derivative. Also, their grammatical function is very much fixed: the
plural -s suffix always creates plural forms of nouns: dog — dogs, cat —
cats. In fact, they do not produce new words in English, but rather provide
the existing lexemes with new forms:
1. the plural [-s] - creates plural forms of nouns: dog — dogs, cat —
cats, bush — bushes,
2. Saxon genitive ['s] - indicates possession: Robert — Robert's
(clothes), children — children's (toys), Jesus — Jesus' (mercy),
3. the past tense [-ed] - creates past forms of regular verbs: walk -
walked, delve -delved,
4. the third person singular [-s] - enforced by the English grammar in the
Present Simple tense: She works there, The knife proves sharp,
5. the progressive [-ing] - used in progressive forms of verbs: go —
going, see — seeing, ski — skiing,
6. the comparative [-er] - forms comparative adjectives: wide — wider,
high — higher, far — farther,
7. the superlative [est] - forms superlative adjectives: wise — widest,
high — highest, far — furthest.
Another type of affixation that can be encountered in either English or
Polish (though to a rather limited scope) is infixation, which involves
putting a morpheme in the middle of a word structure rather than taking
lateral positions: al-bloody-mighty, kanga-bloody-roo. In the English
language this only serves as a tool of emotionally colouring swear-words to
give them greater an impact.
Yet another type of suffix are interfixes. They are used in Polish
compounds and blends to ensure phonological feasibility of a word: śrub-o-
kręt, park-o-metr, lod-o-łamacz and are meaningless phonemes that
connect two bases. They do exist in English but due to the fact that English
compound-formation does not require such measures their number is
scarce (eg. speedo-meter).
In English grammar and morphology, affixation is the process of adding a
morpheme—or affix—to a word to create either a different form of that word
or a new word with a different meaning; affixation is the most common way
of making new words in English.
The two primary kinds of affixation are prefixation, the addition of
a prefix, and suffixation, the addition of a suffix, while clusters of affixes can
be used to form complex words. A large majority of new words in the
English language today are either a result of blending—mashing two words
or partial words together to form a new one—or affixation.
Uses of Affixes
An affix is a word element of English grammar used to alter the meaning or
form of a word and comes in the form of either a prefix or a suffix. Prefixes
include examples like "un-," "self-," and "re-," while suffixes come in the
form of ending elements like "-hood," "-ing," or "-ed."
While prefixes typically maintain the word class (such as noun, verb, or
adjective) of the word it's modifying, suffixes oftentimes change the form
entirely, as is the case with "exploration" compared to "explore" or
"highlighter" compared to "highlight."
Multiple Iterations
You can use multiple iterations of the same affixation to modify a word like
grandmother to mean an entirely different person—as in "great-great-
grandmother," who would be your mother's mother's mother's mother—or a
"re-re-re-make of a film," wherein this film would be the fourth iteration of its
kind.
The same can be applied to different prefixes and suffixes being used on
the same word. For instance, the word nation means a country, but national
means "of a nation," nationalize means "to make part of a nation," and
"denationalization" means "the process of making something no longer part
of a nation." This can continue ad nauseam but becomes increasingly
odd—especially in spoken rhetoric—the more affixes you use on the same
base word.
Affixation vs. Blending
One form of word alteration and invention that is commonly mistaken for
affixation is the process of blending words to form new ones, most notably
present in the example of the marketing term "cranapple," where people
naturally assume the root word "cran-" from "cranberry" is being applied as
an affix.
However, affixes must be able to be universally attached to other
morphemes and still make sense. This is not the case with the "cran-" root,
which is only seen attached to another morpheme in marketing examples
of juices that also contain cranberry juice like "crangrape" and "cranapple."
Instead of being a stand-alone morpheme which conveys "of cranberry,"
the suffix "cran-" can only make sense when applied to other juices and is
therefore considered a blend of two reduced words (cranberry and apple).
Though some words and prefixes can be both stand-alone morphemes or
parts of blended words, meaning the phrases aren't necessarily mutually
exclusive, most often words that are products of blending do not contain
any actual productive affixes.
Compounding or Word-compounding generally refers to the faculty and
device of language to form new words by combining or putting together old
words. ... Conversion on the other hand is a kind of word formation which
involve the creation of a word from an existing word without any change in
form.
Compounding
Two or more words joined together to form a new word. Examples: Home
+ work homework (N) Pick + pocket pickpocket (N) Low + paid low-paid
(Adj)
Note: The meaning of a compound is not always the sum of the meanings
of its parts. Baby oil Coconut oil oil made from coconuts. Olive oil oil made
from olives. NOT oil made from babies
Conversion
Assigning an already existing word to a new syntactic category.
Examples: butter (N) V to butter the bread permit (V) N an entry permit
empty (A) V to empty the litter-bin must (V) N doing the homework is a
must Microwave (N) V
Sources:
Yule, G. The Study of Language 2nd ed., Cambridge: CUP, 1996
Wikipedia
