What Are Affixes?

Affixes in English

Anyone who is familiar with the English language may have noticed that many words have similar beginnings and endings. We call these parts affixes, and there are plentiful examples of them. There are two main groups of affixes to be aware of: prefixes and suffixes. Affixes in English may sometimes change the category (or class) of a word, for example, from a verb to a noun.

Prefixes

Let`s explore the first type of affix. Prefixes are always found at the beginning of a word. Here is a list of some examples:

com-

pre-

un-

mis-

dis-

If we, for instance, take the word calculate and add the prefix mis- we end up with miscalculate. Similarly, by adding dis- to the verb agree we get the negated form disagree.

Suffixes

The second main type of affix is called a suffix, which is always found at the end of a word:

-ly

-ful

-tion

-sion

-ment

If we take the verb govern and add the suffix -ment, we get the noun government. Similarly, the category of the adjective slow changes to an adverb by adding the suffix -ly to get slowly. Any affix that changes the category and meaning of a word is referred to as "derivational morphology." This also includes the miscalculate and disagree example we saw above.