Ificar

Ificar is a productive Spanish verb suffix used to form transitive verbs that express causing a change of state or turning something into something else. It is attached to bases formed from adjectives or nouns, producing verbs that denote transformation, modification, or adoption of a new quality. Examples include clarificar (to clarify), simplificar (to simplify), pacificar (to pacify), fortificar (to fortify), and unificar (to unify).

Etymology and function: the suffix -ificar derives from the Latin -ficare, itself from facere "to make." In Spanish, -ificar acts as a derivational morpheme, attaching to stems to create verbs that describe the action of making or becoming the specified state. The result is a standard, transitive -ar verb that takes regular -ar conjugation patterns in most forms.

Conjugation: verbs ending in -ificar generally follow regular -ar verb conjugation. For example, modificar becomes: yo modifico, tú modifies, él modifica, nosotros modificamos, vosotros modificáis, ellos modifican. In the preterite, the yo forms typically end in -qué to reflect spelling changes from -car verbs (modifiqué, clarifiqué, fortifiqué). Other tenses follow the usual -o, -as, -a, -amos, -áis, -an pattern, with appropriate personal endings.

Usage notes: -ificar verbs are widely used in technical, scientific, and everyday language to express changes or processes (e.g., economic policies that modify, technologies that clarificar data, actions that unificar a group). While many common verbs employ -ificar, not all adjectives or nouns form natural verbs with this suffix, and some prefer alternative forms (e.g., aclarar instead of aclarificar in certain contexts).

See also: -ificación (the nominal form indicating the result or process).