affix

Changing a word by adding a morpheme at its beginning is called prefixation, in the middle is called infixation, and at the end is called suffixation.{{Cite book |last=Matthews |first=Peter Hugoe |title=Morphology |date=October 17, 1991 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521422567 |edition=2nd |pages=131 |language=en}}

Prefix and suffix may be subsumed under the term adfix, in contrast to infix.{{cite book |last=Powell |first=Barry |date=2012 |title=Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |page=255 |isbn=9781118293515|doi=10.1002/9781118293515.gloss |chapter=Glossary }}

When marking text for interlinear glossing, as shown in the third column in the chart above, simple affixes such as prefixes and suffixes are separated from the stem with hyphens. Affixes which disrupt the stem, or which themselves are discontinuous, are often marked off with angle brackets. Reduplication is often shown with a tilde. Affixes which cannot be segmented are marked with a back slash.

Semantically speaking, lexical affixes or semantic affixes, when compared with free nouns, often have a more generic or general meaning. For example, one denoting "water in a general sense" may not have a noun equivalent because all the nouns denote more specific meanings such as "saltwater", "whitewater", etc. (while in other cases the lexical suffixes have become grammaticalized to various degrees.) Although they behave as incorporated noun roots/stems within verbs and as elements of nouns, they never occur as freestanding nouns. Lexical affixes are relatively rare and are used in Wakashan, Salishan, and Chimakuan languages — the presence of these is an areal feature of the Pacific Northwest of North America - where they show little to no resemblance to free nouns with similar meanings. Compare the lexical suffixes and free nouns of Northern Straits Saanich written in the Saanich orthography and in Americanist notation:

Some linguists have claimed that these lexical suffixes provide only adverbial or adjectival notions to verbs. Other linguists disagree, arguing that they may additionally be syntactic arguments just as free nouns are and, thus, equating lexical suffixes with incorporated nouns. Gerdts (2003) gives examples of lexical suffixes in the Halkomelem language (the word order here is verb–subject–object):

:

In sentence (1), the verb "wash" is šak’ʷətəs where šak’ʷ- is the root and -ət and -əs are inflectional suffixes. The subject "the woman" is łə słeniʔ and the object "the baby" is łə qeq. In this sentence, "the baby" is a free noun. (The niʔ here is an auxiliary, which can be ignored for explanatory purposes.)

In sentence (2), "baby" does not appear as a free noun. Instead it appears as the lexical suffix -əyəł which is affixed to the verb root šk’ʷ- (which has changed slightly in pronunciation, but this can also be ignored here). The lexical suffix is neither "the baby" (definite) nor "a baby" (indefinite); such referential changes are routine with incorporated nouns.

In orthography, the terms for affixes may be used for the smaller elements of conjunct characters. For example, Maya glyphs are generally compounds of a main sign and smaller affixes joined at its margins. These are called prefixes, superfixes, postfixes, and subfixes according to their position to the left, on top, to the right, or at the bottom of the main glyph. A small glyph placed inside another is called an infix.Robert Sharer & Loa Traxler, 2006, The Ancient Maya, Stanford University Press. {{ISBN|0-8047-4817-9}} Similar terminology is found with the conjunct consonants of the Indic alphabets. For example, the Tibetan alphabet utilizes prefix, suffix, superfix, and subfix consonant letters.Andrew West, [http://babelstone.blogspot.com/2006/09/precomposed-tibetan-part-1-brdarten.html "Precomposed Tibetan Part 1 : BrdaRten"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101017112015/http://babelstone.blogspot.com/2006/09/precomposed-tibetan-part-1-brdarten.html |date=2010-10-17 }} BabelStone, September 14, 2006

{{Div col|colwidth=22em}}

• {{annotated link|Agglutination}}
• {{annotated link|Augmentative}}
• {{annotated link|Binary prefix}}
• {{annotated link|Clitic}}
• {{annotated link|Combining form}}
• {{annotated link|Concatenation}}
• {{annotated link|Diminutive}}
• {{annotated link|English prefixes}}
• {{annotated link|Family name affixes}}
• {{annotated link|Internet-related prefixes}}
• {{annotated link|Marker (linguistics)}}
• {{annotated link|Morphological derivation}}
• {{annotated link|Separable affix}}
• {{annotated link|SI prefix}}
• {{annotated link|Stemming}}
• {{annotated link|Unpaired word}}
• {{annotated link|Word formation}}

{{div col end}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite journal|last=Gerdts|first=Donna B.|year=2003|title=The morphosyntax of Halkomelem lexical suffixes|journal=International Journal of American Linguistics|volume=69|issue=4|pages=345–356|doi=10.1086/382736|s2cid=143721330}}
• Montler, Timothy. (1986). [http://www.cas.unt.edu/~montler/Saanich/Outline/index.htm An outline of the morphology and phonology of Saanich, North Straits Salish.] Occasional Papers in Linguistics (No. 4). Missoula, MT: University of Montana Linguistics Laboratory.
• Montler, Timothy. (1991). Saanich, North Straits Salish classified word list. Canadian Ethnology service paper (No. 119); Mercury series. Hull, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization. {{ISBN|0-660-12908-6}}

{{Wiktionary|Appendix:English_prefixes|Appendix:English_suffixes}}

{{Wiktionary|affix}}

• {{Commons category-inline}}
• [http://www.prefixsuffix.com/ Comprehensive and searchable affix dictionary reference]

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Category:Lexical units

Category:Linguistics terminology