A course In Modern English Lexicology

§ 10. Main Princi-
in linguistic literature, as suffixes may be di-
ples of Classi- vided into several groups according to different principles:
1) The first principle of classification that, one might say, suggests itself is t h e p a r t of s p e e c h f o r m e d . Within the scope of the part-of-speech classification suffixes naturally fall into several groups such as:
a) noun-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in nouns, e.g. -er, -
dom, -ness, -ation, etc. (teacher, Londoner, freedom, brightness, justi-fication, etc.);
b) adjective-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in adjectives, e.g.
-able, -less, -ful, -ic, -ous, etc. (agreeable, careless, doubtful, poetic, courageous, etc.);
c) verb-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in verbs, e.g. -en, -fy, -
ise (-ize) (darken, satisfy, harmonise, etc.);
d) adverb-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in adverbs, e.g. -ly, -
ward (quickly, eastward, etc.).
2) Suffixes may also be classified into various groups according to the lexico-grammatical character of the base the affix is usually added to. Proceeding from this principle one may divide suffixes into: a) deverbal suffixes (those added to the verbal base), e.g. -er, -ing, -
ment, -able, etc. (speaker, reading, agreement, suitable, etc.); b) denominal suffixes (those added to the noun base), e.g. -less, -ish, -
ful, -ist, -some, etc. (handless, childish, mouthful, violinist, trouble-some, etc.);
c) de-adjectival suffixes (those affixed to the adjective base), e.g. -en, -
ly, -ish, -ness, etc. (blacken, slowly, reddish, brightness, etc.).
3) A classification of suffixes may also be based on the criterion of sense expressed by a set of suffixes. Proceeding from this principle suffixes are classified into various groups within the bounds of a certain part of speech. For instance, noun-suffixes fall into those denoting: a) the agent of an action, e.g. -er, -ant (baker, dancer, defendant, etc.);
b) appurtenance, e.g. -an, -ian, -ese, etc. (Arabian, Elizabethan, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, etc.);
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c) collectivity, e.g. -age, -dom, -ery (-ry), etc. (freightage, official-dom, peasantry, etc.);
d) diminutiveness, e.g. -ie, -let, -ling, etc. (birdie, girlie, cloudlet, squireling, wolfling, etc.).
4) Still another classification of suffixes may be worked out if one examines them from the angle of stylistic reference. Just like prefixes, suffixes are also characterised by quite a definite stylistic reference falling into two basic classes:
a) those characterised by neutral stylistic reference such as -able, -er, -
ing, etc.;
b) those having a certain stylistic value such as -oid, -i/form, -aceous,
-tron, etc.
Suffixes with neutral stylistic reference may occur in words of different lexico-stylistic layers e.g. agreeable, cf. steerable (steerable spaceship); dancer, cf. transmitter, squealer; 1 meeting, cf. monitoring (the monitoring of digestive processes in the body), etc. As for suffixes of the second class they are restricted in use to quite definite lexico-stylistic layers of words, in particular to terms, e.g. rhomboid, asteroid, cruci-form, cyclotron, synchrophasotron, etc.
5) Suffixes are also classified as to the degree of their productivity.
As is known, language is never stable: