Morphemes, free and bound forms

2.4.4 Nominal and verbal suffixes

In ME there are nominal and verbal suffixes. The suffixs – fold, – most and – ward form words which are used both as adjectives and adverbs.

The meaning of a suffix is conditioned by the particular semantic character of the basis to which the suffix is attached, also by the linguistic circumstances in which the coinage is made. In general parlance, a fiver is a bill of five (dollars or pounds), in crikret, jargon it is a hit for five, in school life it may denote a boy who always scrapes through with a five. A greening is a green variety of apple or pear, but a whiting is a white variety of fish. For other possibilities see – er and – ing, for instance. Some concepts are apt to be represented by suffixes in many languages as those of condition (state, quality etc), appurtenance, collectivity, endearment agent a.o, but theoretically there is no telling what concept may not develop to find expression in a suffix. French has a suffix – ier (type pommier) to denote fruit trees, there I – ile for the idea of stable for demos tic animals, 0.6 has a suffix – it is (type nephritis) meaning disease. These have no parallels in English, or in German either. But no intrinsic linguistic principle is involved in the absence of such morphemes. The rise of new suffix in English goes to corroborate this.

A new words are needed with regard to adverbal derivatives. Adeverbal derivative is not fundamentally different from a cpd whose first member is a verb stem, so as in the case of denominal suffixes, a great number of meanings are possible. In practice, however, the possibilities are much restricted. Deverbal suffixes express grammatical functions than semantic concepts, and the usual implications are «act, fact, instance of…» (arrival, quidanse, warning), sometimes «state of…» (starvation, bewilderment), «agent» (personal or impersonal: baker, eraser, disinfectant), «personal object» (direct or indirect, only with – ee, transferee, draftee), «object of result» (breakade, savings), «plase» (settlement, brewery, lodgings). Similar considerations apply to derivation by a zero morpheme (pickpocket, blackaut, look).