Affixation - the process of forming a new word by the addition of a morpheme (or affix) to an already existing word.
Productive - which take part in deriving new words in this particular period of language development. E.g.: Noun: -er ,-ing, -ness, -ist. Adjectives: -y, -ish, -ed, -able. Adverb: -ly. Verb: -ize/ise, --ate. Prefixes:un-, re-, dis-.
Partially - productive - the derivatives build by means of partially - productive affixes. They are limited in coining new words. They are rare. E.g.: Noun: -lin, -ese, -ster, -ie,- let. Prefixes: be-, mis-, dis-, co-.
Non- productive - are those that do not take part in deriving new words in modern English. E.g.: Noun: -th, -hood, -ship-, dom. Adjective: -ly, -some, -ous, -ful. Verb: -en, -fy. Adverb: -wards.
Dead - have undergone the process of archaization during the historical development of the language so they have merged with the root and now can not be recognized as word-building morphemes.
By productive affixes we mean the ones, which take part in deriving new words in this particular period of language development. The best way to identify productive affixes is to look for them among neologisms and so-called nonce-words, i. e. words coined and used only for this particular occasion. (Professor Pringle was a thinnish, baldish, dispeptic-lookingish cove with an eye like a haddock.)
