Affixation as a way of making new words.

Affixation

The affixation is the process of coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to some root morpheme.

 Suffixation is more productive way than prefixation. In Modern English suffixation is characteristic of noun and adjective formation, while prefixation is typical of verb formation (beauty – beautiful, come – become etc.).

From the etymological point of view affixes can be native and borrowed. The borrowing of the affixes is possible only if the number of words containing this affix is considerable, if its meaning and function are definite and clear enough, and also if its structural pattern corresponds to the structural patterns already existing in the language. 

Meaning of affixes are specific and considerably differ from those of root morpheme:

• er  teacher, leader, dancer, singer, driver;
• ist philologist, scientist;
• ant/ent claimant, student etc.

There exist linguistic forms which in modern languages are used as bound forms, also in Greek and Latin, from which they borrowed they function as independent words. They are called combining forms and are frequently used in specialized vocabularies of arts and sciences. They have long become familiar in the international scientific terminology and many of them attain widespread currency in everyday language:

astron – star – astronomy;

bios – life – biology;

phone – sound – telephone;

photos – light – photograph.