By word-building are understood processes of producing new words from the resources of this particular language. Together with borrowing, word-building provides for enlarging and enriching the vocabulary of the language.
Affixation
The process of affixation consists in coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to some root morpheme. The role of the affix in this procedure is very important and therefore it is necessary to consider certain facts about the main types of affixes.
Stem is part of the word consisting of root and affix. In English words stern and root often coincide.
From the etymological point of view affixes are classified into the same two large groups as words: native and borrowed.
Some Native Suffixes
|
Noun-forming |
-er |
worker, miner, teacher, painter, etc. |
|
-ness |
coldness, loneliness, loveliness, etc. |
|
|
-ing |
feeling, meaning, singing, reading, etc. |
|
|
-dom |
freedom, wisdom, kingdom, etc. |
|
|
-hood |
childhood, manhood, motherhood, etc. |
|
|
-ship |
friendship, companionship, master-ship, etc. |
|
|
-th |
length, breadth, health, truth, etc. |
|
|
Adjective-forming |
-ful |
careful, joyful, wonderful, sinful, skilful, etc. |
|
-less |
careless, sleepless, cloudless, sense-less, etc. |
|
|
-y |
cozy, tidy, merry, snowy, showy, etc. |
|
|
-ish |
English, Spanish, reddish, childish, etc. |
|
|
-ly |
lonely, lovely, ugly, likely, lordly, etc. |
|
|
-en |
wooden, woollen, silken, golden, etc. |
|
|
-some |
handsome, quarrelsome, tiresome, etc. |
|
|
Verb-forming |
-en |
widen, redden, darken, sadden, etc. |
|
Adverb-forming |
-ly |
warmly, hardly, simply, carefully, coldly, etc. |
