Suffix

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Suffix

In grammar

Grammar

Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics....
, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an affix

Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivation , like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed....
which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case

Grammatical case

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject , of direct object, or of possession ....
of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation

Grammatical conjugation

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb, noun or adjective from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical tense, Grammatical aspect, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, or other grammatical category....
of verbs.

Suffixes can carry grammatical information (inflection

Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as grammatical tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical case....
al suffixes), or lexical information (derivational

Derivation (linguistics)

In linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words, as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine....
suffixes). An inflectional suffix is sometimes called a desinence.

Some examples from English:

Girls, where the suffix -s marks the plural
Plural

Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers....
.

He makes, where suffix -s marks the third person singular

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
present tense

Present tense

The present tense is the Grammatical tense that may be used to express* action at the present* a state of being;* a habitual action;* an occurrence in the near future; or...
.

He closed, where the suffix -ed marks the past tense
Past tense

The past tense is a verb grammatical tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past of the current moment , or prior to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
.

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Encyclopedia

In grammar
Grammar

Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics....
, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an affix
Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivation , like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed....
which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case
Grammatical case

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject , of direct object, or of possession ....
of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation
Grammatical conjugation

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb, noun or adjective from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical tense, Grammatical aspect, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, or other grammatical category....
of verbs.

Suffixes can carry grammatical information (inflection
Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as grammatical tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical case....
al suffixes), or lexical information (derivational
Derivation (linguistics)

In linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words, as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine....
suffixes). An inflectional suffix is sometimes called a desinence.

Some examples from English:

Girls, where the suffix -s marks the plural
Plural

Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers....
.
He makes, where suffix -s marks the third person singular
Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
present tense
Present tense

The present tense is the Grammatical tense that may be used to express* action at the present* a state of being;* a habitual action;* an occurrence in the near future; or...
.
He closed, where the suffix -ed marks the past tense
Past tense

The past tense is a verb grammatical tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past of the current moment , or prior to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
.

A large number of endings are found in many synthetic language
Synthetic language

A synthetic language, in linguistic typology, is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio. This linguistic classification is largely independent of morpheme-usage classifications , although there is a common tendency for agglutinative languages to exhibit synthetic properties....
s such as Czech
Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czech people worldwide....
, German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
, Finnish
Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by Finnish people outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden....
, Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
, Hungarian
Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic languages unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries....
, Russian
Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
, etc.

Suffixes used in English frequently have Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
, French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
or Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
origins.

Inflectional suffixes

Inflection changes grammatical properties of a word within its syntactic category
Syntactic category

A syntactic category is either a phrasal category, such as noun phrase or verb phrase, which can be decomposed into smaller syntactic categories, or a lexical category, such as noun or verb, which cannot be further decomposed....
. In the example:
The weather forecaster said it would clear today, but it hasn't cleared at all.
the suffix -ed inflects the root
Root (linguistics)

The root is the primary lexicology unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantics content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
-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
Comparative

In grammar, the comparative is the form of an adjective or adverb which denotes the degree or grade by which a person, thing, or other entity has a property or quality greater or less in extent than that of another, and is used in this context with a subordinating conjunction, such as than, as...as, etc....
-est superlative
Superlative

In grammar the superlative of an adjective or adverb is the greatest form of adjective or adverb which indicates that something has some feature to a greater degree than anything it is being compared to in a given context....
-n't negative
Grammatical mood

Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal Linguistic modality.It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English and most other modern Indo-European languages, insofar as the same word patterns are used...

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
Adjective

In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntax role is to grammatical modifier a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's definition....
into an adverb
Adverb

An adverb is a part of speech. It is any word that modifies any other part of language: verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentence s and other adverbs, except for nouns; modifiers of nouns are primarily determiners and adjectives....
. 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:
-ize/-ise
-fy
-ly
-able/-ible
-ful
-ness
-ism
-ism

The Affix -ism denotes a distinctive system of beliefs, myth, doctrine or theory that guides a social movement, institution, Social class or group....
-ment
-ist
-al

See also

Affix
Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivation , like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed....
Inflection
Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as grammatical tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical case....
Derivation (linguistics)
Derivation (linguistics)

In linguistics, derivation is "Used to form new words, as with happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine....
Lexeme
Lexeme

A lexeme is an abstract Unit of Morphology Semantic analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word....
Marker (linguistics)
Marker (linguistics)

In linguistics, a marker is a free or bound morpheme that indicates the grammatical function of the marked word or sentence. In analytic languages and agglutinative languages, markers are generally easily distinguished....
Morpheme
Morpheme

In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes ....
Prefix morpheme

Category:Suffixes