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Suffix

In grammar, a '''suffix''' (also '''postfix''', '''ending''') is an affix which is placed after the stem (linguistics)|stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the grammatical conjugation|conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry grammatical information (inflectional suffixes), or lexical information (derivation (linguistics)|derivational suffixes). An inflectional suffix is sometimes called a '''desinence'''.The Free Online Dictionary Some examples from English:
- ''Girl'''s''''', where the suffix ''-s'' marks the plural.
- ''He make'''s''''', where suffix ''-s'' marks the third person Grammatical number|singular present tense.
- ''He clos'''ed''''', where the suffix ''-d'' marks the past tense. A large number of endings are found in many synthetic languages such as Czech language|Czech, German language|German, Finnish language|Finnish, Latin, Hungarian language|Hungarian, Russian language|Russian, etc. Suffixes used in English frequently have Greek language|Greek, French language|French or Latin origins.

Inflectional suffixes

Inflection changes grammatical properties of a word within its syntactic category. In the example:
- The weather forecaster said it would clear today, but it hasn't cleared at all. the suffix ''-ed'' inflects the root (linguistics)|root-word ''clear'' to indicate past tense. Some inflectional suffixes in present day English:
- '''-s''' third person singular present
- '''-ed''' past tense
- '''-ing''' progressive/continuous
- '''-en''' past participle
- '''-s''' plural
- '''-en''' plural (irregular)
- '''-er''' comparative
- '''-est''' superlative
- '''-n't''' Grammatical mood#Negative|negative

Derivational suffixes

In the example:
- ''"The weather forecaster said it would be clear today, but I can't see clearly at all"'' the suffix ''-ly'' modifies the root-word ''clear'' from an adjective into an adverb. Derivation can also form a semantically distinct word within the same syntactic category. In this example:
- ''"The weather forecaster said it would be a clear day today, but I think it's more like clearish!"'' the suffix ''-ish'' modifies the root-word ''clear'', changing its meaning to "clear, but not very clear". Some derivational suffixes in present day English:
- '''-ize/-ise'''
- '''-fy'''
- '''-ly'''
- '''-able'''
- '''-ful'''
- '''-ness'''
- '''-ism'''
- '''-ment'''
- '''-ist'''
- '''-al'''

References

Category:Linguistic morphology Category:Suffixes| Category:English morphemes simple:Suffix

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