Talk:Suffix

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Contents 1 Missing -ized 2 Syntactic v semantic 3 Missing 4 Clearish 5 More Geographic Suffixes 6 What about -er? 7 AfD

[edit] Missing -ized

Missing ized- e.g. robotized, 24.55.106.132 16:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Syntactic v semantic

I have distinguished between syntactic and semantic suffixes and have named them as "alternatives" since off the top of my head I can think of any that are both. I'm also going to change the examples to have the same root-word as I think this will illustrate the difference better. Lou.weird 15:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted the last edit (diff) as I think it's covered in the 'grammatical functions' section and I'm not sure what it adds to it. Please have another go at rewriting it if I'm wrong. Lou.weird 13:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

These so called suffix morphemes are technically called inflectional morphemes according my Linguistics book from The Ohio State University. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.105.32.138 (talk) 07:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing

Or have I got it all wrong? 160.39.130.192 14:28, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• -arian... Librarian, Libertarian, Communitarian.
• -ical... Academical, Polemical.

These (and -ized above) should go in {{Table_suffixes}} but I don't know how to access that and edit it - does anyone else? --Lou.weird 13:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Librarian does not fit your pattern: -ian is added to library, rather than -arian to lib. 203.229.115.58 12:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clearish

Is clearish a word? Dictionary.com finds no definitions for it, and the first Google return is for a slang dictionary. 203.229.115.58 12:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there are a number of suffixes - widely understood and recognised - which are colloquial, even jocular, in use. Another example is "-esque", such as "Tolkien-esque" or "Shakespeare-esque", to indicate that something has a similarity or similar essence to something else (e.g. "Your use of maps to illustrate your epic fantasy stories is very Tolkien-esque" or "Using a rhyming couplet to bring a chapter to a close is a very Shakespeare-esque technique").

These present a difficulty in the sense that their usage - especially in the jocular sense - will often create technically non-existent words (indeed, the humour is often entirely in the fact that the word isn't a real word. e.g. "Is it just me or isn't it a bit freezing-ish in here?". The question being otherwise in no sense humourous, other than for the silly redundant construction of a non-existent word "freezingish").

Indeed, "-ish" is even sometimes used colloquially in speech as if a word on its own. e.g. "Was that any good?" / "Well, ish").

Though they shouldn't simply be ignored or discounted for their slang-ish, colloquial-esque nature, because they are used frequently (and, as they really aren't peculiar to any subgroup, but really are part of the common use of the language itself across all groups, then is it even strictly accurate to describe them as "slang"?).

Plus there are instances where "-ish" and "-esque" do form valid words, such as "Polish" (as there's no way to discern the difference when written, as there is in speech, that's "pole-ish" - the people, language and generic adjective for things originating from Poland - not "pol-ish" - a cleaning substance and / or verb for bringing out a shiny appearance) or, say, "Arabesque". Of course, that's where the "-ish" and "-esque" suffixes in their jocular, colloquial sense stem from: A deliberate knowing over-application of a valid suffix elsewhere, as if capable of being mated with any word or even set of words at all.

Perhaps a new category to distinguish the more "genuine" suffixes from these slightly more jocular and colloquial ones? Note that one of the suffixes already on this page "-ville" is also frequently re-applied in a jocular sense. e.g. "cools-ville" being the figurative "place of all coolness".

Oh, wait, I've discovered another one accidentally there. "Coolness" isn't actually a word either (according to my Concise Oxford English here). So there's another example of colloquial "over-application" of a suffix. In fact, I almost didn't catch that one, because it is very, very common to apply "-ness" to words, but probably a fair amount of them strictly aren't "real words".

I think maybe a whole new section might be required to explain this. That in colloquial usage, many suffixes are mated with nearly any word at all, often creating non-existent words, to capture either a jocular or otherwise-difficult-to-explain semantic. It's a deliberately knowing loose grammar to "bend" the language into those corners it otherwise could not reach.

Personally, as you can probably tell from the difficulty I'm having expressing myself in this here reply, I don't feel qualified or up to the task of creating such a new section. But I do think that one is needed to cover these "loose grammar" usages of suffixes. Because, as I've somewhat demonstrated in this very reply itself, these forms of "loose grammar" are employed with regularity. PetrochemicalPete 11:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More Geographic Suffixes

Why are there no "-burg", "-ian" (for a nationality), "-town", "-land", "-(s)ton"?, "-iard" (for a nationality), "-ania/nia/ia", "nesia", or related suffixes? I know "nesia" means island and I think I once heard an explanation for "-burg".

"Burg" is a loanword for German. It just means a town, same as "Ville".--MacRusgail 14:19, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Just wondering, should we simply "be bold" here and add all these extra suffixes to the list as broken links, awaiting someone to eventually come along and fire up a new page about them?

As for "-burg" being similar to "-ville", that's quite correct, and isn't that all the more reason that "-burg" should be included in the list? Because being on par with "-ville", if "-ville" is included then "-burg" should equally be there. A case of either both should be listed or neither should, but not one without the other or that's some kind of weird xenophilic bias to loanwords from only one language, while discounting those from another. English is much more Germanic at its core than it is French too, so it would even be a somewhat counter-intuitive bias in this case. PetrochemicalPete 11:21, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What about -er?

What about -er??

How about -tion?

And: -ful

[edit] AfD

The following discussion was brought from Ending (linguistics). -- FilipeS (talk) 21:57, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I put this up for deletion (see reasons there). The only part of this article that informs the reader about the topic of word endings is the first:

In linguistics, an ending is a group of one or more letters added to the end of a stem to denote inflection, i.e., either declension of nouns and adjectives or conjugation of verbs. It is distinguished from a suffix in that it does not carry additional semantic meaning but serves only to establish the word's use in the sentence. Examples in English include the -s added to nouns to form the plural and the -ed added to verbs to form the past tense.

... and it is wrong. "A group of one or more letters": not linguistics. Confuses letters with sounds. "To denote inflection": it might not be inflection (could be a clitic). "Either declension ... or conjugation": Could be other things as well. "It is distinguished from a suffix...": if it's an ending and it's not a clitic, then it's a suffix by definition. "Does not carry additional semantic meaning": well, besides the fact that semantics implies meaning, what about the plural -s? It doesn't carry meaning?

The rest of the article has nothing to do with the core idea except tangentially.

When I came by, "Ending" was linked from a few other places. In some cases it was wrongly linked (e.g. from "ending song"), comprehensibly because the word is so general. It was linked from two linguistics-related articles; in one I replaced it by a link to suffix (which was the intended meaning) and in other it was simply part of the expression "verb ending" (self-explanatory in its context).

Moreover, "ending" is not a linguistics term. It's a common word that you can find in non-professional grammars or in informal speech. I don't think this very general word should have an article, so I proposed to delete it. I could live with it being renamed to "word ending" and turned into a disambiguation page, if there's something to disambiguate to (suffix, (en-)clitic, etc.). --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 13:37, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, if you feel this article should be renamed. But I think it should not be merged with Suffix because it is not the same. I am not a native English speaker, so I could choose an improper term. I was searching several Czech-English dictionaries for English equivalents of "koncovka". All suggest "ending", some also mention "desinence" or "termination". The term koncovka is used in the Czech linguistic literature regullarly for morphs (not letters) denoting inflexions. It corresponds to the definition you cite. Koncovka is distinguished from přípona (suffix). This distinction is very important in Czech, as it is a strongly inflected language.

It really does not carry semantic meaning. It has syntactic function (and meaning). Plural carries meaning but not semantic.

I think "word ending" would be OK. --Pajast 11:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

"Word ending" should be a redirect to suffix. I guess "ending" by itself could be a disambiguation page. Pajast, I don't understand the distinction you're trying to make between "ending" and "suffix". Could you give some examples from English? Remember that affixes can be inflectional or derivational. FilipeS 11:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, English liguists use the term "suffix" for both inflectional and derivational (I don't know). This may be the source of confusing. Koncovka (or ending – in dictionaries) is inflectional, přípona (or suffix) is derivational in Czech linguistic theory. Well, "word ending" could be redirected to Suffix, but there should be more examples. --Pajast 14:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)