12. Affixation. Criteria for classifying suffixes and prefixes.

If viewed structurally, words are divisible into smaller units which are called morphemes. A morpheme is also an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern. But unlike a word it is not autonomous. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of a single morpheme. Morphemes are not divisible into smaller meaningful units. That is why the morpheme may be defined as the minimum meaningful language unit. A morpheme may be either bound or free. It means that some morphemes can form words without adding other morphemes; that is, they are homonymous to free words.

According to the role they play in constructing words, morphemes are subdivided into roots and affixes. The latter are further subdivided into prefixes, suffixes and infixes, and according to the function and meaning into derivational and functional affixes, the latter also called endings or outer formatives.

A suffix is a derivational morpheme following the stem and forming a new derivative in a different part of speech or a different word. When both the underlying and the resulting forms belong to the same part of speech, the suffix serves to differentiate between lexico-grammatical classes. For instance, both –ify and –er are verb suffixes, but the first characterizes causative verbs such as horrify, purify, whereas the second is mostly typical of frequentative verbs: shimmer, flicker and the like.

A prefix is a derivational morpheme standing before the root and modifying meaning, cf. to hearten – to dishearten, to like – to dislike. It is only with verbs and statives that a prefix may serve to distinguish one part of speech from another, like in sleep n – asleep (stative), eart n – unearth v. Within a few exceptions prefixes modify the stem fro time (pre-, post- e.g. pre-war, post-impressionism), for place (in-, ad- e.g. inside, adjoin), for negation (un-, dis- e.g. uncertain, dislike). An infix is an affix placed within the word e.g. –s- : statesman, -o-: speedometer, -i-: handicraft. The type is not productive.

Classification of Prefixes

- Negative prefixes. The prefix de- occurs in many neologisms, such as decentralize, decontaminate, etc. The general idea of negation is expressed by dis-, e.g. appear-disappear, agree-disagree; non – is often used in abstract verbal nouns such as noninterference, nonsense, etc. The prefix im- occurs before bilabials (impossible), ir- before r (irregular), il- before l (illegal), in- before all other consonants and vowels (indirect, inability).

The most frequent is the prefix un-; it should be noted that it may convey two different meanings, namely:

a) Simple negation, when attached to adjective stems or to particles: happy-unhappy, even-uneven.

b) The meaning is different when un- is used with verbal stems. In that case it shows actions contrary to that of the simple word: do-undo, pack-unpack.

- Another frequent prefix with a great combining power is re- denoting repetition of the action expressed by the stem: arrange-rearrange, marriage-remarriage.

- Most prefixes affect only the lexical meaning of words, but they are some important cases where prefixes serve to form words belonging to different parts of speech as compared with the original words. These are in the first place the verb-forming prefixes be- and en-/ em-: (belittle, becloud; encamp, engulf, embed).

- The prefix a- is the characteristic feature of words belonging to statives: afraid, asleep, awake, etc.

- The prefixes pre-, post-, non-, anti- and some other Romanic and Greek prefixes serve to form adjectives e.g. anti-war, pre-war, non-party.

- The prefixes in-, a-, ab- modify the root for place e.g. inside, abduct. Several prefixes serve to modify the meaning of the stem for degree. They are out-, over- and under, e.g. outlive, overfeed, undernourish.

- Among borrowed morphemes H.Sweet listed the following prefixes: amphi-, ana-, apo-, cata-, exo-, en-, hypo-, meta-, sina- (Greek), and ab-, ad-, amb- (Latin) e.g. amphitheatre, anaphora, adverbial.