What Is an Affix in English Grammar and Morphology

In English grammar and morphology, an affix is  a word element  that can be attached to a base or root  to form a new word or new form of the word, usually occurring as either a prefix or suffix. Put simply, an affix  is a group of letters that are generally added to the beginning or the end of a root word that can change the words meaning. As their names would entail, prefixes  like pre-, re-, and trans- are attached to the beginnings of words such as predict, reactivate, and transaction, while  suffixes  like -ism, -ate, and -ish are attached to the ends of words such as socialism, eradicate, and childish. In rare cases, an affix may be added to the middle of a word and is therefore called an  infix, which occurs in such words as cupsful and passersby, where the additional -s- affix pluralizes the words cupful and passerby, thus changing their form. What Is a Prefix? A prefix is a  letter  or group of letters attached to the beginning of a  word  that partly indicates its meaning, including such as examples as anti- to mean against, co- to mean with, mis- to mean wrong or bad, and trans- to mean across. The most common prefixes in English are those that express  negation  like a- in the word asexual, in- in the word incapable, and un- in the word unhappy. These negations immediately alter the meaning of the words they are added to, but some prefixes merely change the form. The word prefix itself contains the prefix pre-,  which means before, and the  root word  fix, which means to fasten or place. Thus, the word itself means to place before. Prefixes are  bound  morphemes, which means they cant stand alone. Generally, if a group of letters is a prefix, it cant also be a word. However, prefixation, or the process of adding a prefix to a word, is a common way of  forming new words  in English. What Is a Suffix? A  suffix  is a letter or group of letters added to the end of a word or  root—its  base  form—serving to form a new word or functioning as an  inflectional  ending. The word suffix comes from the Latin, to fasten underneath. There are two primary types of suffixes in English: Derivational, such as the addition of -ly to an adjective to form an  adverb, indicating what type of word it is.Inflectional, such as the addition of -s to a  noun  to form a  plural  telling something about the words grammatical behavior. Difference Between Affixes and Compound Words Affixes are  bound  morphemes, which means that they cant stand alone. If a group of letters is an affix, it usually cant also be a word. However,  Michael Quinions  2002 book, Ologies and Isms: Word Beginnings and Endings, explains the importance of these affixes to the English language and its ever-evolving usage. Although quite similar to  compounds—which combine two words with separate meanings to form a new word with a new meaning—affixes must be attached to other words in order to have meaning in and of themselves, says Quinion. Still, affixes can often be stacked together in clusters to create  complex words  much more easily than compounds can, as David Crystal explains in his 2006 book, How Language Works. He uses the example of nation, which can become national as well as nationalize, nationalization, or  denationalization. Source Crystal, David. How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die. 10/16/07 edition, Avery, November 1, 2007. Quinion, Michael. Ologies and Isms: A Dictionary of Word Beginnings and Endings. Oxford Quick Reference, Oxford University Press, November 17, 2005.