Affixation
Affixation is the morphological process of forming new words by attaching a bound morpheme (an affix) to a root or stem. It is the most productive word-formation process in English and the central mechanism behind both derivational and inflectional morphology (Plag 2003; Bauer 1983).
Types of Affix by Position
English uses two affix positions productively. A handful of others are attested cross-linguistically and worth knowing for typology and metalanguage.
| Type | Position | English status | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prefix | Before the base | Productive | un-happy, re-write, dis-agree, pre-view |
| Suffix | After the base | Productive | teach-er, kind-ness, organ-ize, book-s |
| Infix | Inside the base | Marginal in English | abso-bloody-lutely (expletive infixation) |
| Circumfix | Around the base | Not native to English | German ge-...-t past participle (ge-spiel-t) |
| Suprafix | Tonal/stress change | Marginal in English | récord (N) vs recórd (V) |
Bauer (1983, p. 20) treats root, stem, and base as overlapping but distinct: the root is the irreducible morphological core, the stem is what an inflection attaches to, and the base is whatever an affix is currently attaching to in a given derivation step.
Derivational vs Inflectional Affixation
The two subtypes of affixation differ on four standard criteria (Haspelmath & Sims 2010; Booij 2012). Derivational affixation typically changes word class or core meaning and creates a new lexeme: teach (V) → teacher (N), happy (Adj) → unhappy (Adj). Inflectional affixation signals grammatical features required by syntactic context without creating a new lexeme: teach → teaches, taught, teaching.
The boundary is contested at the edges. Bauer (1983, 2003) notes that participles change category yet are usually classed as inflectional, and some derivational suffixes (-ness, -ly) approach inflection-like productivity. Treat the criteria as a cluster, not a clean dichotomy.
Productive English Prefixes and Suffixes
Bauer and Nation (1993) ranked English affixes by frequency and regularity. The 20 most frequent prefixes and suffixes account for the bulk of derived vocabulary in academic text. High-yield prefixes include negation (un-, in-, dis-, mis-, non-), repetition or reversal (re-), and degree (over-, under-, pre-, post-). High-yield suffixes include nominalisers (-tion, -ment, -ness, -ity, -er), adjectivisers (-able, -ful, -less, -ive, -ous), and verbalisers (-ize, -ify, -en).
Phonological and Orthographic Effects
Affixation often triggers stress shift and spelling adjustment. Latinate suffixes such as -ity, -ic, -ion attract stress to the syllable immediately preceding them: PHO-to-graph → pho-TO-gra-phy → pho-to-GRA-phic. Anglo-Saxon suffixes such as -ness, -ly, -ful are stress-neutral. Spelling rules cover doubling (run + -ing → running), e-dropping (hope + -ing → hoping), and y-to-i (happy + -ness → happiness).
Teaching Implications
Affix knowledge is one of three pillars of vocabulary learning identified by Nation (2001), alongside guessing from context and deliberate study. Morphological awareness, including affix awareness, predicts reading comprehension in both L1 and L2 English readers (Kieffer & Lesaux 2012). Practical implications: teach high-frequency affixes explicitly from intermediate level, group affixes by function (negation, nominalisation), build word-family tables (decide → decision → decisive → decisively), and link affix instruction to stress shift practice. For productive use, learners need to know not just what an affix means but which bases it attaches to and what spelling or stress changes follow.
References
- Bauer, L. (1983). English Word-Formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Bauer, L., & Nation, P. (1993). Word families. International Journal of Lexicography, 6(4), 253–279.
- Haspelmath, M., & Sims, A. D. (2010). Understanding Morphology (2nd ed.). London: Hodder Education.
- Kieffer, M. J., & Lesaux, N. K. (2012). Direct and indirect roles of morphological awareness in the English reading comprehension of native English, Spanish, Filipino, and Vietnamese speakers. Language Learning, 62(4), 1170–1204.
- Nation, I. S. P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Plag, I. (2003). Word-Formation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.