In
linguistics, a
suffix (also sometimes called a
postfix or
ending) is an
affix which is placed after the
stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the
grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the
conjugation of verbs. Particularly in the study of
Semitic languages, a
suffix is called an
afformative, as they can alter the form of the words to which they are fixed. In
Indo-European studies, a distinction is made between suffixes and endings (see
Proto-Indo-European root).
Suffixes can carry grammatical information (inflectional suffixes) or lexical information (derivational suffixes). An inflectional suffix is sometimes called a desinence.
Some examples from English:
:Girls, where the suffix -s marks the plural.
:He makes, where suffix -s marks the third person singular present tense.
:It closed, where the suffix -ed marks the past tense.
Many synthetic languages—Czech, German, Finnish, Latin, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, etc.—use a large number of endings.
Suffixes used in English frequently have Greek, French or Latin origins.
Inflectional suffixes
Inflection changes grammatical properties of a word within its
syntactic category.
In the example:
:The weather forecaster said it would clear today, but it hasn't cleared at all.
the suffix
-ed inflects the
root-word
clear to indicate past tense.
Some inflectional suffixes in present day English:
-s third person singular present
-ed past tense
-ing progressive/continuous
-en past participle
-s plural
-en plural (irregular)
-er comparative
-est superlative
-n't negative
Derivational suffixes
In the example:
:
"The weather forecaster said it would be clear today, but I can't see clearly at all"
the suffix
-ly modifies the root-word
clear from an
adjective into an
adverb.
Derivation can also form a semantically distinct word within the same syntactic category.
In this example:
:
"The weather forecaster said it would be a clear day today, but I think it's more like clearish!"
the suffix
-ish modifies the root-word
clear, changing its meaning to "clear, but not very clear".
Some derivational suffixes in present day English:
/
/
See also
Affix
Inflection
Derivation (linguistics)
Lexeme
Marker (linguistics)
Morpheme
Pejorative suffix
Prefix
Prefix morpheme
Notes
External links
Comprehensive and searchable suffix reference angelica12estrella
Category:Linguistic morphology
Category:Lexical units
Category:English morphemes
![ETR 470 in Venice Pendolino (from Italian pendolo [ˈpɛndolo]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110103040206im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/76/85/889bd9f83268b348e9702b86c755_grande.jpg "ETR 470 in Venice Pendolino (from Italian pendolo [ˈpɛndolo]")
![ETR 470 in Venice Pendolino (from Italian pendolo [ˈpɛndolo]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110103040206im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/76/85/889bd9f83268b348e9702b86c755_thumb.jpg "ETR 470 in Venice Pendolino (from Italian pendolo [ˈpɛndolo]")
