Introducing English Linguistics

The meanings of derivational affixes.
In their discussion of affixes in
English, Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 89–94) categorize affixes according to
the meanings that they express. For instance, a number of affixes, they note,
“in some way quantify the root” (p. 89). The prefix a- indicates that some-
thing is “lacking” (e.g. amoral, atonal). The prefixes mono-, bi-, and tri- number
the words to which they are affixed (e.g. monosyllable, bifocal, triangle). Many
prefixes “say something about place or direction” (p. 90). The prefix en- points
inward (e.g. encapsulate, enclose, encircle); intra- locates something within (e.g.
intracity, introvert); and retro- points to the past (e.g. retrogression, retrograde).
Unlike most prefixes, suffixes can also change the part of speech of a
word, and to varying degrees the meaning of the resultant word as well. As
Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 89) observe, the amount of new meaning a
suffix adds to a word will vary considerably: the suffix -ly, they claim, does
little more than change an adjective into an adverb (e.g. hearty
→ heartily).
However, other suffixes create more significant changes in meaning.
English words: Structure and meaning
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Many suffixes, such as -ation, -ness, and  -ment, convert verbs or adjectives
into abstract nouns known as nominalizations:
verb to noun: creation, production, realization, establishment, resentment,
development
adjective to noun: goodness, happiness, likeliness, tastiness, fitness, heartiness
The suffixes -ant, -er, and -ist convert verbs or nouns into “agentive nouns”
(p. 94): nouns with the meaning ‘someone who does something’:
Verb to noun: