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Importance of affixes in English

Affixes may be derivational or inflectional which means that can create new words
by deriving other words for the necessity of the people in our modernity. Making new
words is necessary to change a little the grammatical structure without changing the
main meaning of the word and the structure, only adding some morphemes at the
beginning, in the middle or at the end, depending of the necessity to form the new
word. In our modern society, new elements are appearing such in technology,
medicine, etc. Those new things need names for that reason adding morphemes to
the main words we can create others similar, but with different meaning. In English,
we have affixes which are divided into prefixes and suffixes although exists other
that are rare to find such as indices; also, circumfixes which we do not have in our
language, all of those affixes have an importance in our language.

Affixes has different types which modify the root words changing them into other new
with another meaning. Affixes are important for the English language because new
words are created and also, the root word can give a clue for the meaning of the new
word. An affix is a group of letters which are added to the end or at the begging of
the root word that can change the words meaning; the root words sometimes are
added suffixes or prefixes in order to give a name to the new technologies due to
new objects are created; therefore, they need to be recognized and then, an affix
modifies the root word for the necessity of our society.

Prefixes are a type of affixes which come at the beginning of a root word. In the
English language, there are about 50 different common prefixes that were created
new meaning, each prefix give us a clue about the words meaning, examples of
prefixes could be an-, meaning to be without, anti- meaning against, bi-meaning two,
contra-meaning against, dis-meaning not and others. Those words that we add at
the beginning change the meaning and depend what is expressed. Suffixes are
important in English because with some letters more can have another sense the
root word.

Suffixes in English language can change the main meaning of the root words and
they come to the end. The suffixes always are added to the end of the root word, but
it is divided into inflectional suffixes change the way understand a word without
changing it the meaning an instance could be le word cookie, if we add s we will
have cookies, the main meaning does not change because it still be a cookie. Also,
they are used for the past of the regular verbs or the superlatives, the word changed,
but the meaning have not. The other category is derivational suffixes that change
the meaning, derivational suffixes can change an adjective to a noun or a verb to a
noun depending on the necessity of what you want to express, some instances of
ending letters to add are -able which means able to do, -cay which means quality,
-er which means someone who does something, -less it means without something
and others. If we add one of those parts to the end of a root word we can create
another meaning as in the friend and if we add -less the word become to friendless
which means without friend. Therefore, inflectional suffixes are easier to understand
than derivational because inflectional suffixes do not change the meanings and the
derivational suffixes change the meaning into other new.

In conclusion, prefixes and suffixes are used in English language the meaning of the
root words although in some cases we add new letters to the end, but the meaning
does not change which are called inflectional suffixes; moreover, exist infixes and
circumfixes, but they are not common in the language. All those affixes are really
necessary and important for the English language due to they created new words
even the new words look different, the root word is the clue for understanding their
meaning.

Written by: Jesus Alexander Villanueva

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