I. CHAPTER. Affixation in English 1.1. Classification of affixation Depending on the purpose of research, various classifications of suffixes have been used and suggested. Suffixes have been classified according to their origin, parts of speech they served to form, their frequency, productivity and other characteristics.
Within the parts of speech suffixes have been classified semantically according to lexico-grammatical groups and semantic fields, and last but not least, according to the types of stems they are added to.
In conformity with our primarily synchronic approach it seems convenient to begin with the classification according to the part of speech in which the most frequent suffixes of present-day English occur. They will be listed together with words illustrating their possible semantic force.1 Noun-forming suffixes:
-age (bondage, breakage, mileage, vicarage); -ance/-ence2(assistance, reference); -ant/-ent (disinfectant, student); -dom (kingdom, freedom, officialdom); -ее(employee); -eer (profiteer); -er (writer, type-writer); -ess (actress, lioness); -hood (manhood); -ing (building, meaning, washing); -ion/-sion/-tion/-ation(rebellion, tension, creation, explanation); -ism/-icism (heroism, criticism); -ist (novelist, communist); -ment (government, nourishment); -ness (tenderness); -ship (friendship); -(i)ty (sonority). Adjective-forming suffixes:
-able/-ible/-uble (unbearable, audible, soluble); -al (formal); -ic (poetic); -ical (ethical); -ant/-ent (repentant, dependent); -ary(revolutionary); -ate/-ete (accurate, complete); -ed/-d (wooded); -ful (delightful); -an/-ian (African, Australian); -ish (Irish, reddish, childish); -ive(active); -less (useless); -like(lifelike); -ly(manly); -ous/-ious (tremendous, curious); -some (tiresome); -y(cloudy, dressy). Numeral-forming suffixes: -fold (twofold); -teen (fourteen); -th (seventh); -ty(sixty). Verb-forming suffixes:
