Suffixes can carry grammatical information (inflectional endings) or lexical information (derivational/lexical suffixes).[1] Inflection changes the grammatical properties of a word within itssyntactic category. Derivational suffixes fall into two categories: class-changing derivation and class-maintaining derivation.
Inflection changes the grammatical properties of a word within itssyntactic category. In several languages, this is realized by an inflectional suffix, also known asdesinence. In the example:
I was hoping the cloth wouldn't fade, but it has faded quite a bit.
the suffix-d inflects theroot-wordfade to indicate past participle.
Inflectional suffixes do not change the word class of the word after the inflection.[5] Inflectional suffixes in Modern English include:
A suffix will often change the stress or accent pattern of a multi-syllable word, altering the phoneme pattern of the root word even if the root's morphology does not change.[7] An example is the difference between "photograph" and "photography". In this case, the "-y" ending governs the stress pattern, causing the primary stress to shift from the first syllable ("pho-") to the antepenultimate ("-to-"). The unaccented syllables have their ordinary vowel sound changed to a schwa. This can be a particular problem for dyslexics, affecting their phonemic awareness,[8] as well as a hurdle for non-native speakers.
^Kremer, Marion. 1997.Person reference and gender in translation: a contrastive investigation of English and German. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, p. 69, note 11.
^Marchand, Hans. 1969.The categories and types of present-day English word-formation: A synchronic-diachronic approach. Munich: Beck, pp. 356 ff.
