linguistics Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...

, an affix is a

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...

that is attached to a

word stem In linguistics, a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. The term is used with slightly different meanings depending on the morphology of the language in question. In Athabaskan linguistics, for example, a verb stem ...

to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or

inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...

al, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes. Affixation is the linguistic process that speakers use to form different words by adding morphemes at the beginning (prefixation), the middle (infixation) or the end (suffixation) of words.

Positional categories of affixes

''Prefix'' and ''suffix'' may be subsumed under the term ''adfix'', in contrast to ''infix.'' When marking text for

interlinear gloss In linguistics and pedagogy, an interlinear gloss is a gloss (series of brief explanations, such as definitions or pronunciations) placed between lines, such as between a line of original text and its translation into another language. When gloss ...

ing, as in the third column in the chart above, simple affixes such as prefixes and suffixes are separated from the stem with hyphens. Affixes which disrupt the stem, or which themselves are discontinuous, are often marked off with angle brackets. Reduplication is often shown with a tilde. Affixes which cannot be segmented are marked with a back slash.

Lexical affixes

''Lexical affixes'' (or ''semantic affixes'') are bound elements that appear as affixes, but function as

incorporated noun In linguistics, incorporation is a phenomenon by which a grammatical category, such as a verb, forms a compound with its direct object (object incorporation) or adverbial modifier, while retaining its original syntactic function. The inclusion o ...

s within verbs and as elements of

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

s. In other words, they are similar to word roots/stems in function but similar to affixes in form. Although similar to incorporated nouns, lexical affixes differ in that they never occur as freestanding nouns, i.e. they always appear as affixes. Lexical affixes are relatively rare. The Wakashan,

Salishan The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a family of languages of the Pacific Northwest in North America (the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana). They are characterised by ...

, and Chimakuan languages all have lexical suffixes — the presence of these is an

areal feature In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, or, common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted to ...

of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The lexical suffixes of these languages often show little to no resemblance to free nouns with similar meanings. Compare the lexical suffixes and free nouns of Northern Straits Saanich written in the Saanich orthography and in Americanist notation: Lexical suffixes, when compared with free nouns, often have a more generic or general meaning. For instance, one of these languages may have a lexical suffix that means water in a general sense, but it may not have any noun equivalent referring to water in general and instead have several nouns with a more specific meaning (such "saltwater", "whitewater", etc.). In other cases, the lexical suffixes have become grammaticalized to various degrees. Some linguists have claimed that these lexical suffixes provide only adverbial or adjectival notions to verbs. Other linguists disagree arguing that they may additionally be syntactic

arguments An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...

just as free nouns are and, thus, equating lexical suffixes with incorporated nouns. Gerdts (2003) gives examples of lexical suffixes in the

Halkomelem language Halkomelem (; in the Upriver dialect, in the Island dialect, and in the Downriver dialect) is a language of various First Nations peoples of the British Columbia Coast. It is spoken in what is now British Columbia, ranging from southeastern ...

(the

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

here is verb–subject–object): : In sentence (1), the verb "wash" is šak’ʷətəs where šak’ʷ- is the root and -ət and -əs are inflectional suffixes. The subject "the woman" is łə słeniʔ and the object "the baby" is łə qeq. In this sentence, "the baby" is a free noun. (The niʔ here is an

auxiliary Auxiliary may refer to: * A backup site or system In language * Auxiliary language (disambiguation) * Auxiliary verb In military and law enforcement * Auxiliary police * Auxiliaries, civilians or quasi-military personnel who provide support of ...

, which can be ignored for explanatory purposes.) In sentence (2), "baby" does not appear as a free noun. Instead it appears as the lexical suffix -əyəł which is affixed to the verb root šk’ʷ- (which has changed slightly in pronunciation, but this can also be ignored here). Note how the lexical suffix is neither "the baby" ( definite) nor "a baby" (indefinite); such referential changes are routine with incorporated nouns.

Orthographic affixes

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

, the terms for affixes may be used for the smaller elements of conjunct characters. For example,

Maya glyphs Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found which ...

are generally compounds of a ''main sign'' and smaller ''affixes'' joined at its margins. These are called ''prefixes, superfixes, postfixes,'' and ''subfixes'' according to their position to the left, on top, to the right, or at the bottom of the main glyph. A small glyph placed inside another is called an ''infix.'' Similar terminology is found with the conjunct consonants of the Indic alphabets. For example, the

Tibetan alphabet The Tibetan script is a segmental writing system (''abugida'') of Indic origin used to write certain Tibetic languages, including Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi, Jirel and Balti. It has also been used for some non-Tibetic languages ...

utilizes prefix, suffix, superfix, and subfix consonant letters. Andrew West
"Precomposed Tibetan Part 1 : BrdaRten"
''BabelStone,'' September 14, 2006

References

Bibliography

* * Montler, Timothy. (1986)
''An outline of the morphology and phonology of Saanich, North Straits Salish''.
Occasional Papers in Linguistics (No. 4). Missoula, MT: University of Montana Linguistics Laboratory. * Montler, Timothy. (1991). ''Saanich, North Straits Salish classified word list''. Canadian Ethnology service paper (No. 119); Mercury series. Hull, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization.

External links