affix

Definition:

A word element (morpheme)--usually a prefix or suffix--that can be attached to a base, stem, or root to form a new word.

Etymology:

From the Latin, "fasten"

Examples and Observations:

• "Very similar to compounds are formations where one of the elements is a whole word and the other is not, as in agriculture, biotechnology, Eurodollar, technophobia, and workaholic. . . .
  
  "Most formations of this kind involve additional elements called affixes, which in English are of two types: prefixes, occurring before the stem of a word, and suffixes, occurring after. English does not have affixes in large numbers--about fifty common prefixes and somewhat fewer common suffixes. Prefixes include dis-, mal-, ex-, and semi-, as in disinterested, malformed, ex-husband, and semi-detached. Suffixes include -ship, -ness, -ette, and -let, as in hardship, goodness, kitchenette, and booklet. Clusters of affixes can be used to build up complex words:

  nation, national, nationalize, nationalization
  denationalization, antidenationalization

  Over half the words in English are there because of processes of this kind. And this is one reason why children's vocabulary grows so quickly once they learn some prefixes and suffixes."
  (David Crystal, How Language Works, Overlook Press, 2006)



• "Derivational prefixes do not normally alter the word class of the base word; that is, a prefix is added to a noun to form a new noun with a different meaning. . . . Derivational suffixes, on the other hand, usually change both the meaning and the word class; that is, a suffix is often added to a verb or adjective to form a new noun with a different meaning:
  adjective: dark / suffixed noun: darkness
  verb: agree / suffixed noun: agreement
  noun: friend / suffixed noun: friendship"
  (Douglas Biber, Susan Conrad, and Geoffrey Leech, Longman Student Grammar of Spoken English, Longman, 2002)

Pronunciation: A-fix