1.12 – An Introduction to Affixes: Prefix and Suffix
Before you can be able to master the use of affixes, you need to understand the concept of “root words or base words” first.
Roots words or Base words are the most basic part of a word, and they are quite the same. When you add an affix to a root or base word, you can either change the meaning of the word or a part of speech of the word.
There are two main types of affixes in English which are Prefix and Suffix.
Prefixes come at the beginning of the root word or base word.
Suffixes come at the end of the root word or base word.
For example,
1. dis- (prefix) + comfort (root word) = discomfort
2. comfort (root word) + -able (suffix) = comfortable
3. un- (prefix) + comfort (root word) + -able (suffix) = uncomfortable
Moreover, there are some rules that you need to know about prefix and suffix. Firstly, adding a prefix to a root word can change the meaning of the word but not a part of speech whereas adding suffix can change the part of speech of the word but meaning stays the same.
For example,
Prefix (im-)
Meaning: not
Impossible
Impolite
Possible = adjective
Impossible = adjective
Parts of speech are still the same. Meaning changed.
Suffix (-er)
Meaning: who take part in
Teacher
Driver
Teach = verb
Teacher = noun
Parts of speech are changed. Meaning remains the same.
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Changing Verbs to Nouns
“To educate” is a verb. It means “to teach”. If you wanted to use it in a sentence you would say, “My teacher educated me.”
What if you wanted to talk about how well you were taught at school, though? You could say, “When I was in high school, my teachers did a good job teaching me.”
You could also say, “My high school education was very good.” By adding -tion to the end of the verb, you change it from a verb to a noun.
-tion is called a suffix. A suffix is anything that you attach to the end of a word to change its meaning. -ment is another suffix that you can use to change verbs to nouns. You often add -ment to the end of verbs that end in an “n” or “y” For example:
“To entertain” is a verb. It means “to make someone have a good time.” If you want to use it in a sentence, you could say, “The actor entertained the crowd with many jokes.”
If you want to ask how good the actor’s jokes were, then you could ask your friend, “how was the entertainment tonight?”
Some verbs, like “perform” end in “m”. For these words, you’ll add -ance. “To perform” is to do a job or action that people watch. When you perform a song on a stage, people watch your performance.
Referring to people by the things they do
Sometimes you want to talk about a person who does a certain job all the time. A person who collects garbage is a garbage collector. A person who sings is a singer. A person who dances is a dancer. A person who teaches is a teacher. You probably notice that if you attach -er or -or to the end of a verb, it changes the word to a person who does the action. These are the two most common ones. Sometimes you attach -ian if the word ends in “c” or “t”, like
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musician or electrician or Christian. You may also add -ist, like in words such as typist, receptionist, and pharmacist.
-ism or -ity are the suffixes you attach to a word to make it into an idea noun. A Christian practices Christianity. A Buddhist practices Buddhism. The idea of what makes every human part of the same group is our humanity.
Gerunds
A gerund is a verb that you make into a noun by adding -ing. This can get confusing because a verb in the present continuous tense also ends in -ing. The difference is in how you use it. A gerund is a verb that you use as a noun. A present continuous verb is a verb that you are currently doing. Let’s use an example.
“I am swimming.” You are currently doing this, so it’s a present continuous verb.
“I like swimming.” You are talking about a thing that you like. Here, swimming is a noun. You could replace “swimming” with “movies” and it would make sense because they are both nouns.
Turning Nouns and Verbs into Adjectives
You can change verbs to adjectives also. You usually do this by adding -al, -ed, -ing, -ful, or -able to the end of the verb.
“Herbs” are plants that people eat or smell for their unique flavor or smell. Herbal medicine is medicine made out of those plants.
“To excite” is a verb. If you want to say that riding a motorcycle excites you, then you would say that it is exciting or that it makes you feel excited.
“Peace” is a noun that means “no fighting”. If you want to describe someone as a person who doesn’t fight other people, you would call them a peaceful person.
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A teachable person is someone who is easy to teach. A lovable dog is a dog that is easy to love. An understandable lesson is a lesson that is easy to understand.
Turning Adjectives into Nouns
You may also want to change an adjective into a noun. To do this, you often attach -ness or -ence to the end of the adjective. Take a look.
“Happy” is an adjective. You can be happy. You can talk about a happy baby. Both those words describe a person, but what about the idea of “happy”. What if you don’t want to talk about a person, but “happy” itself. You need to change the “y” to an “i” and attach -ness. The word becomes “happiness”. That is a noun. Now you can say, “I want to have more happiness in my life” or “Love and happiness are the two things that everyone wishes for.”
In the same way, someone who is free is independent. If you want to talk about freedom itself, then you use the word independence.
Turning any Word into an Adverb
Sometimes you want to take a noun, adjective, or verb and make an adverb out of it to use it to describe another verb. “Quick” is an adjective. You use it to say that someone or something is fast: “I have a quick cat.”
If you want to use it to tell someone to do something faster, you would say, “Run quickly!” By attaching -ly to the end of the word, you make it an adverb, which can modify a verb.
Sometimes you will need to make this ending into -ally for words that end in “n” or -ily for words that end in “y” (ex: “happy” becomes “happily”).
An “emotion” is a noun that means a feeling like happiness, sadness, or anger. “Physical” is an adjective that refers to things you can touch. The physical world is the world around you that you can touch. If someone hurts you, they can hurt your body or your feelings. This means that they can hurt you
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physically or emotionally. Both words are adverbs that describe how someone hurts you.
Some Words don’t Change
A few words, such as “love” can be both a verb and a noun:
“I love you” uses the word as a verb.
“Love is a wonderful thing” uses the word as a noun.
Some words can be an adjective and an adverb without attaching a new suffix, like “fast”.
“I drive a fast car” uses the word to describe as an adjective to describe the car, which is a noun.
“He runs fast” uses the word as an adverb to describe how he runs, which is a verb.
Summing Up
There are many ways to change a verb into a noun or an adjective into an adverb and so on. There are a number of specific rules concerning certain suffixes. Teaching all of these rules will take longer than we time for in this lesson. For now, you just need to know that a word can change so that when you are writing, you can choose to use the right form of a word. Now, you can also recognize the most common suffixes and be able to spot them in your reading.