Suffixes can carry grammatical information (inflectional endings) or lexical information (derivational/lexical suffixes).[1] Inflection changes the grammatical properties of a word within its syntactic category. Derivational suffixes fall into two categories: class-changing derivation and class-maintaining derivation.
A word-final segment that is somewhere between a free morpheme and a bound morpheme is known as a suffixoid[2] or a semi-suffix[3] (e.g., English-like or German-freundlich "friendly").
wárraidya "emu" — where the lack of suffixes is because its grammatical number, singular, is "unmarked"
wárraidyalbili "two emus" — dual
wárraidyarri "emus" — plural
wárraidyailyarranha "a lot of emus", "heaps of emus" — superplural[4]: 227–228
Inflectional suffixes
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Inflection changes the grammatical properties of a word within its syntactic category. In several languages, this is realized by an inflectional suffix, also known as desinence. In the example:
I was hoping the cloth wouldn't fade, but it has faded quite a bit.
the suffix -d inflects the root-word fade to indicate past participle.
Inflectional suffixes do not change the word class of the word after the inflection.[5] Inflectional suffixes in Modern English include:
Verbs
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-s third person singular simple present indicative active
Derivational suffixes can be divided into two categories: class-changing derivation and class-maintaining derivation.[6] In English, they include
-ly (usually changes adjectives into adverbs, but also some nouns into adjectives)
-al /-ual (usually changes nouns into adjectives)
-ic /-ical (usually changes nouns into adjectives)
-ish (usually changes nouns into adjectives/class-maintaining, with the word class remaining an adjective)
-ful (usually changes nouns into adjectives)
-oid (usually changes nouns into adjectives)
-like (usually changes nouns into adjectives)
-less (usually changes nouns into adjectives)
-able/-ible (usually changes verbs into adjectives)
-ant (usually changes verbs into nouns, often referring to a human agent)
-tion/-ion/-ation (usually changes verbs into nouns)
-ment (usually changes verbs into nouns)
-ity (usually changes adjectives into nouns)
-ness (usually changes adjectives into nouns)
-fy (usually changes nouns into verbs)
-ise/-ize (usually changes nouns into verbs)
-ess (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)
-ism (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)
-ist (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)
-hood (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)
-logy/-ology (usually class-maintaining, with the word class remaining a noun)
-um (usually) museum; stadium; auditorium; aquarium; planetarium; medium
-wise From wīse ("manner, way, condition, direction")
Altered pronunciation in English
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A suffix will often change the stress or accent pattern of a multi-syllable word, altering the phoneme pattern of the root word even if the root's morphology does not change.[7] An example is the difference between "photograph" and "photography". In this case, the "-y" ending governs the stress pattern, causing the primary stress to shift from the first syllable ("pho-") to the antepenultimate ("-to-"). The unaccented syllables have their ordinary vowel sound changed to a schwa. This can be a particular problem for dyslexics, affecting their phonemic awareness,[8] as well as a hurdle for non-native speakers.
References
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^Mead, Jonathan (1993). Proceedings of the 11th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Center for the Study of Language (CSLI). ISBN 978-1-881526-12-4.
^Kremer, Marion. 1997. Person reference and gender in translation: a contrastive investigation of English and German. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, p. 69, note 11.
^Marchand, Hans. 1969. The categories and types of present-day English word-formation: A synchronic-diachronic approach. Munich: Beck, pp. 356 ff.