Anthologica Universe Atlas / Reference / Derivational Morphology / Collection of Derivational Processes
Derivational affixes are segments which attach to word roots or words, producing a variety of meanings and often changing word categories when attaching. It must be born in mind that the list of derivational processes is open-ended, and practically anything that can be expressed as a paraphrase or compound can be expressed with a derivational affix. This article contains a list of common processes as well as a few odd ones for inspiration. It's not obligatory to have an affix for every process in the list—some languages like Mandarin or Nahuatl handle almost everything with compounding, instead of using derivational affixes. But the list can be good food for thought.
Note that this list's examples involve bound morphemes (affixes) exclusively, though compounds (words formed by the union of two roots) can also be thought of as having undergone a derivational process.
There are many possibilities to derive derivational affixes from. They don't have to be prepositions (in-, over-) or unanalyzable segments (-ly, -ize). Some possible etymologies are:
To another gender: contemporary Spanish alcalde ‘male mayor’ > alcaldesa ‘female mayor’; enfermera 'female nurse' > enfermero ‘male nurse’
Wife of a male: 19th century Spanish alcalde 'mayor' > alcaldesa ‘wife of a/the mayor’
Singulative (individual of a collective): Arabic تفاح tuffāḥ 'apples' (collective) > تفاحة tuffāḥa ‘an apple’
Body of a mass noun: Salvadoran Spanish agua (mass noun) ‘water’ ~ una agua (count noun) ‘a bag/bottle of water’
Augmentative: Spanish libro 'book' > librote ‘big book’
Diminutive: Arabic كتاب kitāb ‘book’ > كتيب kutayyib ‘little book’
Pejorative: Spanish hombre 'man' > hombrezuelo ‘petty, despicable man’
Belief system, doctrine, way of thought: “Tao” > “Taoism”
Believer of a religion, follower of a way of thought: “Calvin” > “Calvinist”
A blow with something: Spanish garrote ‘club’ > garrotazo ‘a blow with a club’
Response to an action with the same: “proposal” > “counter-proposal”
Profession related to something: Arabic خبز ḫubz ‘bread’> خباز ḫabbāz ‘baker’
Language of a place or group/kind of people: “Vietnam” > “Vietnamese”, “Korea” > “Korean”, “Arab” > “Arabic”
Unit consisting of a group of measures: “gram” > “kilogram” ‘unit of 1000 grams’
Girl with a trait: Japanese 眼鏡 megane ‘glasses’ > 眼鏡っ娘 meganekko ‘girl with glasses’
Scandal or controversy involving something: “nipple” > “nipplegate” ‘controversy surrounding the exposure of Janet Jackson's nipple at the Superbowl that one time’
Quality, measure: “deep” > “depth”, “lofty” > “loftiness”
Individual: Spanish rojo ‘red’ > el rojo ‘the red (one)’
Process: “to declare” > “(during the) declaration of war” (i.e. “while somebody was declaring it”)
Result: “to build” > “building”
Agent: “to kill” > “killer”
Full of something: “hate” > “hateful” (“full of hate”)
Having something: Sanskrit putrás ‘son’ > putrávants ‘having sons’
Related to a person's thought or deeds: “Chomsky” > “Chomskian”
Gentilic, i.e. coming from a place: “Vietnam” > “Vietnamese”, “Israel” > “Israeli”
Causing a state to others: “to annoy” > “annoying”, “to bore” > “boring”
Being in a state: “to bore” > “bored”
Characteristically prone to do something: “talk” > “talkative”
From common noun to personal pronoun by metonimy: Classical Chinese 臣 chén (Mandarin) sàhn (Cantonese) ‘(your) servant’ > 臣 chén/sàhn ‘I (first person pronoun when speaking to a superior)’
Adjective (and noun) to personal pronoun: Classical Chinese 寡人 guǎ rén (Mandarin) gwáa yàhn (Cantonese) ‘alone/friendless person’ > 寡人 guǎrén/gwáayàhn ‘I (first person pronoun used by royalty or nobility)’
Interrogative to indefinite: Mandarin 什麼 shénme ‘what’ > 什麼也 shénmeyě ‘everything, anything, nothing’; Latin quis, quid ‘who, what’ > aliquis, aliquid ‘somebody, something’
Do an action with something: “saw” ~ “to saw”, Spanish horno ‘oven’ > hornear ‘to bake’
Undergo an action: Spanish accidente ‘accident’ > accidentarse ‘to have an accident’
Causative, i.e. to make somebody something: “red” > “redden” ‘make something red’
Reverse an action: “connect” > “disconnect”
Negative action: “trust” > “distrust” (“not-trust”), Cantonese 記得 geidāk 'to remember' > 唔記得 mgeidāk ‘to forget’ (“not-remember”)
Intensive, i.e. increase intensity or force of an action: Arabic كسر kasara ‘to break’ > كسّر kassara ‘to smash’
Delimitative, i.e. reduce intensity of an action: Mandarin 看 kàn ‘to look’ > 看（一）看 kàn(yi)kàn ‘to have a look’
Redo an action: ‘do’ > ‘redo’
Causative, to make somebody do something: Proto-Germanic *fallaną ‘to fall’ > *fallianą ‘to fell, cause to fall, make fall down’
Do an action to the outside: Latin capere ‘to take’ > excipere ‘to take out’
Do an action to the inside: Latin pōnere ‘to put’ > impōnere ‘to put in’
Do an action forward: Latin spectāre ‘to look at’ > aspectāre ‘to look forward’
Do an action backwards: Latin pellere ‘to push’ > repellere ‘to push back’
Do an action downward: Latin pōnere ‘to put’ > dēpōnere ‘to put down’
Do an action onto the top: “impose” > “superimpose”
Do an action to an exceeding degree: “saturate” > “supersaturate”
Do an action together: “direct (a movie)” > “co-direct (a movie)”
Do an action that assembles something together: Latin pōnere ‘to put’ > compōnere ‘to put together’, agere ‘to conduct, drive, lead’ > cōgere ‘to collect’ (“conduct/drive something together”)
Do an action against something: Latin premere ‘to press’ > opprimere ‘to supress’
Do an action wrongly, unintentionally: “understand” > “misunderstand”
Do an action wrongly, intentionally: “lead” > “mislead”
Respond to an action with the same: “attack” > “counter-attack”
To address somebody with a certain pronoun: French tu ‘you (singular and informal)’ > tutoyer ‘to address somebody with the pronoun tu’
Modificative, how or with what state an action happens: “happy” > “happily”, Spanish difícil ‘difficult’ > difícilmente ‘with difficulty’, silencioso ‘quiet’ > silenciosamente ‘in silence’
Number of times something is done: “two” > “twofold”
Note that this list's examples involve bound morphemes (affixes) exclusively, though compounds (words formed by the union of two roots) can also be thought of as having undergone a derivational process.
Origins of Derivational Affixes
There are many possibilities to derive derivational affixes from. They don't have to be prepositions (in-, over-) or unanalyzable segments (-ly, -ize). Some possible etymologies are:
- Zero-derivation: Sometimes words don't change superficially at all to change word category. Very common in English, an example would be “urge” > “to urge”.
- Roots in compounds: what originally were compounds or two (or more) roots combined can turn into a root and an affix. Many of the derivational prefixes in English were originally prepositions used in compounds with nominals and verbs, whether native to English (e.g. over- as in “overload” or “overlook”) or borrowed from Latin (e.g. sub- as in “substandard”). Prepositions are not the only option, many languages can attach nominal or verb roots together, directly as in “rainbow” (rain-bow) or “blueberry”, or shortening them as in Arabic كهرطس kahraṭas ‘electromagnetism’ from كهرباء kahrubāʾ ‘electricity’ and مغناطيس maġnāṭīs ‘magnetism’. Sometimes, such roots ca become bound morphemes, especially when borrowed, as with English super- or inter- borrowed from Latin.
- Gender markers: the singulative marker in Arabic is the same as the feminine singular marker (-a), while the collective nouns they come from are masculine.
- Participle endings: participles often take on particular rather unproductive or unexpected meanings from the verb they derive from. Particularly common are nouns expressing agency, processes of an action, the result of said action, as well as the patients or receivers of said action. An example would be Spanish amante ‘lover’—originally, Latin amāns (the etymology of amante), meaning ‘loving’, was the active participle of the verb amō ‘to love’.
- Unanalyzable material borrowed from other languages: -ize was borrowed from Old French -iser, itself a borrowing from Greek -ίζειν -ízein.
- Inflectional morphemes doing double duty: Arabic has nouns derived by attaching the regular plural suffix ـات -āt to a noun already in the plural. Such “plural-of-plural” nouns typically have a connotation of elegance or particular distinction. As an example, رجل raǧul ‘man’ has the plural رجال riǧāl ‘men’, from which رجالات riǧālāt ‘men of distinction’ is derived.
Noun
Noun to Noun
To another gender: contemporary Spanish alcalde ‘male mayor’ > alcaldesa ‘female mayor’; enfermera 'female nurse' > enfermero ‘male nurse’
Wife of a male: 19th century Spanish alcalde 'mayor' > alcaldesa ‘wife of a/the mayor’
Singulative (individual of a collective): Arabic تفاح tuffāḥ 'apples' (collective) > تفاحة tuffāḥa ‘an apple’
Body of a mass noun: Salvadoran Spanish agua (mass noun) ‘water’ ~ una agua (count noun) ‘a bag/bottle of water’
Augmentative: Spanish libro 'book' > librote ‘big book’
Diminutive: Arabic كتاب kitāb ‘book’ > كتيب kutayyib ‘little book’
Pejorative: Spanish hombre 'man' > hombrezuelo ‘petty, despicable man’
Belief system, doctrine, way of thought: “Tao” > “Taoism”
Believer of a religion, follower of a way of thought: “Calvin” > “Calvinist”
A blow with something: Spanish garrote ‘club’ > garrotazo ‘a blow with a club’
Response to an action with the same: “proposal” > “counter-proposal”
Profession related to something: Arabic خبز ḫubz ‘bread’> خباز ḫabbāz ‘baker’
Language of a place or group/kind of people: “Vietnam” > “Vietnamese”, “Korea” > “Korean”, “Arab” > “Arabic”
Unit consisting of a group of measures: “gram” > “kilogram” ‘unit of 1000 grams’
Girl with a trait: Japanese 眼鏡 megane ‘glasses’ > 眼鏡っ娘 meganekko ‘girl with glasses’
Scandal or controversy involving something: “nipple” > “nipplegate” ‘controversy surrounding the exposure of Janet Jackson's nipple at the Superbowl that one time’
Adjective to Noun
Quality, measure: “deep” > “depth”, “lofty” > “loftiness”
Individual: Spanish rojo ‘red’ > el rojo ‘the red (one)’
Verb to Noun
Process: “to declare” > “(during the) declaration of war” (i.e. “while somebody was declaring it”)
Result: “to build” > “building”
Agent: “to kill” > “killer”
Adjective
Noun to Adjective
Full of something: “hate” > “hateful” (“full of hate”)
Having something: Sanskrit putrás ‘son’ > putrávants ‘having sons’
Related to a person's thought or deeds: “Chomsky” > “Chomskian”
Gentilic, i.e. coming from a place: “Vietnam” > “Vietnamese”, “Israel” > “Israeli”
Verb to Adjective
Causing a state to others: “to annoy” > “annoying”, “to bore” > “boring”
Being in a state: “to bore” > “bored”
Characteristically prone to do something: “talk” > “talkative”
Pronoun
Noun to Pronoun
From common noun to personal pronoun by metonimy: Classical Chinese 臣 chén (Mandarin) sàhn (Cantonese) ‘(your) servant’ > 臣 chén/sàhn ‘I (first person pronoun when speaking to a superior)’
Adjective to Pronoun
Adjective (and noun) to personal pronoun: Classical Chinese 寡人 guǎ rén (Mandarin) gwáa yàhn (Cantonese) ‘alone/friendless person’ > 寡人 guǎrén/gwáayàhn ‘I (first person pronoun used by royalty or nobility)’
Pronoun to Pronoun
Interrogative to indefinite: Mandarin 什麼 shénme ‘what’ > 什麼也 shénmeyě ‘everything, anything, nothing’; Latin quis, quid ‘who, what’ > aliquis, aliquid ‘somebody, something’
Verb
Noun to Verb
Do an action with something: “saw” ~ “to saw”, Spanish horno ‘oven’ > hornear ‘to bake’
Undergo an action: Spanish accidente ‘accident’ > accidentarse ‘to have an accident’
Adjective to Verb
Causative, i.e. to make somebody something: “red” > “redden” ‘make something red’
Verb to Verb
Reverse an action: “connect” > “disconnect”
Negative action: “trust” > “distrust” (“not-trust”), Cantonese 記得 geidāk 'to remember' > 唔記得 mgeidāk ‘to forget’ (“not-remember”)
Intensive, i.e. increase intensity or force of an action: Arabic كسر kasara ‘to break’ > كسّر kassara ‘to smash’
Delimitative, i.e. reduce intensity of an action: Mandarin 看 kàn ‘to look’ > 看（一）看 kàn(yi)kàn ‘to have a look’
Redo an action: ‘do’ > ‘redo’
Causative, to make somebody do something: Proto-Germanic *fallaną ‘to fall’ > *fallianą ‘to fell, cause to fall, make fall down’
Do an action to the outside: Latin capere ‘to take’ > excipere ‘to take out’
Do an action to the inside: Latin pōnere ‘to put’ > impōnere ‘to put in’
Do an action forward: Latin spectāre ‘to look at’ > aspectāre ‘to look forward’
Do an action backwards: Latin pellere ‘to push’ > repellere ‘to push back’
Do an action downward: Latin pōnere ‘to put’ > dēpōnere ‘to put down’
Do an action onto the top: “impose” > “superimpose”
Do an action to an exceeding degree: “saturate” > “supersaturate”
Do an action together: “direct (a movie)” > “co-direct (a movie)”
Do an action that assembles something together: Latin pōnere ‘to put’ > compōnere ‘to put together’, agere ‘to conduct, drive, lead’ > cōgere ‘to collect’ (“conduct/drive something together”)
Do an action against something: Latin premere ‘to press’ > opprimere ‘to supress’
Do an action wrongly, unintentionally: “understand” > “misunderstand”
Do an action wrongly, intentionally: “lead” > “mislead”
Respond to an action with the same: “attack” > “counter-attack”
Pronoun to Verb
To address somebody with a certain pronoun: French tu ‘you (singular and informal)’ > tutoyer ‘to address somebody with the pronoun tu’
Adverb
Adjective to Adverb
Modificative, how or with what state an action happens: “happy” > “happily”, Spanish difícil ‘difficult’ > difícilmente ‘with difficulty’, silencioso ‘quiet’ > silenciosamente ‘in silence’
Quantifier to Adverb
Number of times something is done: “two” > “twofold”