WORD FORMATION

WORD-FORMATION IN ENGLISH

AFFIXATION OR DERIVATION

• Affixation

The formation of words by adding derivational affixes to roots or bases.

Hope hopeful hopefully hopefulness

hopeless hopelessly hopelessness

Derivational affixes that form nouns
-nouns are the largest class of words

-age mileage, marriage, postage

-al approval, withdrawal

-ant deodorant, disinfectant

-dom kingdom, wisdom

More suffixes that form nouns

-ee employee, referee, trainee

-er –or writer, vendor

-hood childhood

-ing building, fencing

-ism realism, idealism

-ist naturalist, dentist

More suffixes that form nouns

-ity nationality, identity

-ent development, management

-ness fitness, happiness

-ship membership

More suffixes that form nouns

-tion,-sion addition, extension

-tude attitude

-y entry, discovery

Suffixes added to verbs to form nouns

Verb Noun

amaze amazement

contest contestant

refer referee

survive survivor

write write

Suffixes added to adjectives to form nouns

Adjective Noun

bright brightness

loyal loyalist

rapid rapidity

Suffixes added to nouns to form verbs

-ate hyphenate, coordinate

-ify beautify, classify

-ize memorize, characterize

-en strengthen, lengthen

Suffixes added to adjectives to form verbs

wide widen

white whiten

red redden

Form verbs from the following roots or bases

http://writersmagnet.blogspot.com/2005/12/verb-forming-suffixes.html

captive critic strength

nausea glory active

civil sweet illumine

beauty ripe identity

Suffixes that form adjectives

-able workable

-al informal

-ed bearded, lefthanded

-en golden, wooden

-ese Japanese, Chinese

-ful grateful, helpful

-i Pakistani

Suffixes that form adjectives

-ish Swedish

-ive offensive

-ian Brazilian

-less childless

-ly monthly, motherly

-ous famous

-y windy

Suffixes that form adverbs

-ly rapidly

-wards backwards

-wise clockwise

Prefixes do not normally change the word class of a word

Immature

Impossible

Inadequate

Illogical

Irrational

dislike

unpack

Prefixes

un- unpack, untie

dis- dishonest

out- outlive, outrun

Over- overeat, overcharge

Under- underestimate

CONCLUSIONS

Affixation: addition of affixes to roots or bases to create new words.

Derivational affixes add lexical meaning to a word and they may also change the word class.