MORPHOLOGY

Affixation: How Languages Remix Words to Build New Meanings

And what morphology teaches us about the strange machinery inside everyday words

Language is made up of underlying structures. But because it seems so organic and so fluid, especially in everyday conversations, we forget that there are set patterns underneath it all that make it possible. And one domain that reveals that is morphology. There are specific principles that language relies on to form words, no matter how messy they may sound.

There’s a reason why ‘happy’ can easily go from that to ‘happiness’, ‘happier’, ‘happiest’, to ‘unhappiness’, etc.

You can play with the root word, ‘care,’ as well and end up with ‘careful’, ‘careless’, ‘carefree’, ‘caring’, ‘uncaring’, etc…

Another interesting thing is that each language approaches morphology differently. When I was an English-Haitian Creole interpreter, I noticed that English often relies heavily on ‘affixation’. Haitian Creole doesn’t use affixation that much, to begin with. And it may use them in reverse, for the same word.

For instance, let’s say I want to translate the word ‘soul-less ’ in Haitian Creole; it would be ‘san-nanm’. In this case, the prefix ‘san-’ meaning without and the root word ‘nanm’ translating to soul. So, sometimes the same word that uses a suffix in English would use a prefix in Haitian Creole.

Sometimes, things get even trickier. Let’s say I wanted to translate the sentence ‘This handwriting is unintelligible’ into Haitian Creole. I would need to say, ‘Moun pa ka konprann ekriti sa’, which translates to, ‘People can’t understand this handwriting.’ The reason is that, although the words ‘intelligible’ and ‘unintelligible’ are extensions of the word ‘intelligent,’ we don’t use them in Haitian Creole.

How languages create words — Illustration by the author

As a translator/interpreter, you learn to work around those morphological restrictions. For the sentence ‘This handwriting is unintelligible’, there are other things you could do if you wanted your translation to keep the original sentence structure, though.

You could use the French synonym ‘Compréhensible,’ the literal translation of ‘Comprehensible’. This way you would engage in ‘loan/calque translation’. So, you could translate it as, ‘Ekriti sa pa konpreyansib.’

Similarly, we can say ‘Ekriti sa pa lizib’ using the negative marker, ‘pa’ in front of the direct translation of ‘legible.’ So, this would translate, ‘This handwriting is not legible.’ If I really wanted to stretch it, I could swap it for ‘Ekriti sa ilizib.’ But the word ‘ilizib’ is not so common, even when ‘lizib,’ which translates to ‘legible,’ is.

So, today we’re going to talk about affixation and how little add-ons change the meaning of everyday words.

Prefixes

Prefixes in morphology

When we add an affix to the front, it’s called a ‘prefix.’ We usually use them to flip meanings or specify things. So, you’ll see affixation when people want to express the opposite of something else. So, if I’m not happy, I’m ‘un-**happy.’ If I don’t agree, I dis-agree. If people can’t see me, I’m in-visible, and if nobody cares, it’s a non*-issue*.

We also use prefixes to time or order things. So, the performance that comes before the game is a pre-game show. The time after a war is the post-war era, while the ancestors who lived through it are our* fore-*fathers.

You might have also seen words like micro-wave, macro-economics, or hyper-active. So, certain prefixes give us a sense of size and scale, while others, like the prefix ‘re-’ found in words like re-view, re-write, and re-enter, give us a sense of repetition.

Some prefixes are there just to make things happen. Think of prefixes like ‘en-’ or ‘em-’. They are mostly used to put a word into a brand-new state. So, if I take away someone’s freedom, that would be me en-**slaving them, and if I set them free and give them a voice back, I em*-power* them.

Suffixes

Suffixes — Illustration by the author

Now, it goes without saying that suffixes are attached at the end of a root. Suffixes allow us to change a word class. Using suffixes, we can turn most words into nouns and vice versa. ‘Slow’ is an adjective, but ‘slow-ness’ is a noun. ‘Assess’ is a verb, but ‘assessment’ is a noun. ‘Friend’ is a noun, whereas ‘friendship’ is, well… just another type of noun.

Specific suffixes are used in specific situations. One of the most common suffixes in the English language is ‘-ness.’ The suffix allows you to name abstract ideas. Think of nouns like slow-ness, quick-ness, gentle-ness, etc…

But beyond that, the suffix ‘-ness’ allows us to be playful and is a quick way to turn whole phrases into one concept. So, I could say, ‘This is a full dose of pure what-the-hell-ness’. What about mixing it with some foreign language, like in ‘her quiet posture of je-ne-sais-quoi-ness bothers me.’

This just gives us so much to work with, doesn’t it? And I just love it. I mean, isn’t it better to say, ‘There’s a beautiful too-much-ness to the decoration’ than to say, ‘The decoration feels extra, but it’s beautiful’? Or to say, ‘Her being-good-at-everything-ness makes me insecure’ over ‘It makes me insecure that she’s good at everything’?

The suffix ‘-ity’ does the same thing with mostly words of foreign origins. Think of words like ‘*curios-ity’, ‘solid-ity’, or ‘selectiv-ity’. And if we want to talk about a process, we usually use the suffix ‘-ment’. The process of assessing is an ‘assess-ment’, just as supporting a cause or your favorite political figure is an ‘endorse-ment’. The active process of taking part in something is an ‘involve-ment’, and the process of curing someone is their ‘treat*-ment’.

Words like ‘friend-ship’, ‘member-ship’, or ‘citizen-ship’ describe some type of condition due to the ‘-ship’ suffix. And words like ‘King-dom’, ‘stard-dom’, or ‘clerk-dom’ refer to a general state or realm due to the suffix ‘-dom’.

The suffix ‘-en’ allows us to express the idea of ‘making more X’. Think of words like ‘short-**en, wid-en, bright-en, strength-en’, etc… Now, if I want to express the idea of ‘Without X’, I’d use the suffix ‘-less’, as we can see in words like ‘hope-less, speech-less, express-ion-less, thank-less, etc…’**

As opposed to the suffixes mentioned above, which are derivational, meaning they result in new words, other suffixes are merely inflectional. This means that they just give you another grammatical version of the same word. Think of how ‘cat’ becomes ‘**cat-*s*’, how ‘hide’ becomes ‘hidd-en’ or how ‘cold’ becomes ‘cold*-er*’.

Infixes and Reduplication

An infix is an element that gets inserted right into the middle of a word or a single morpheme. So, the add-on splits the root apart.

Reduplication — Illustration by the author

Infixes are not that common in English. But we still have some interesting constructions. Think of English phrases like ‘abso-bloody-lutely’ or ‘fan-*fcking*-tastic.* These are things that we insert within words.

Different languages have different rules for infixes. A language like Tagalog, for instance, would place its infixes in front of the first vowel. So, to turn the translation for writing, ‘sulat’ into to write, we would insert the infix ‘um’. So we’d say, ‘s-um-ulat’.

Speaking of rules, you may notice that in English, it would sound very wrong to say, ‘*ab-bloody-solutely*’. This is because infixes, when used in English, have to fall between two metrical feet. This means you have to follow the natural rhythm of the language.

In some languages, infixes are used to change word class; In the Indigenous Austroasiatic language Kamhmu, we can turn the verb ‘Hiip’ meaning ‘to eat with a spoon’ into what would translate as ‘a spoon’ using the ‘rn’ infix and turning it into ‘*h-rn-iip*’.

In *Oaxaca Chontal*, the indigenous language of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, we can use the infix -t- to form the plural of singular words. So, ‘Kwepo’ would be lizard, whereas ‘kwe-t-*po*’ would translate as lizards.

Reduplication is the repetition of sounds, words or syllables. Think of words like bye-bye, TikTok, Papa, etc…

I’ve written a whole story about this linguistic phenomenon here. Check it out:

[embed]Reduplication: Why We Repeat Sounds, Syllables, and Words And how different languages handle this linguistic phenomenonmedium.com

Final Thoughts

Affixation — Illustration by the author

Language is very efficient. Those little units of meaning prove that we have more than one tool at our disposal to express ourselves. It’s also a good lesson for language learners when approaching a new language. Ask yourself,

• What are the shortcuts that exist in my target language?
• What are the ways that specific languages recycle/remix words?
• What are the things that sound horrible, and why?

If you want to dig deeper into your understanding of words and word-formation processes, check out the following articles:

[embed]How Native Speakers Shorten Words And what does that mean for language learning?medium.com

[embed]The Weird Way Autological Words Describe Themselves Analyzing self-descriptive words like English, UPPERCASE, and polysyllabicmedium.com

[embed]These Are the Exact Reasons Why You Can’t Count Words Or the challenges of dealing with clitics, compounds, and other nuances that complicate word countmedium.com