morphologysuffixes

Morphologysuffixes are bound morphemes attached to the end of a word stem to form a new word or to express grammatical information. They are a central device in many languages for word formation, inflection, and agreement, and they contrast with prefixes that attach to the front of a base. Suffixes can alter a word’s part of speech, encode tense, number, case, mood, and voice, and they often participate in phonological adjustments at word boundaries.

Two main types exist: inflectional suffixes and derivational suffixes. Inflectional suffixes adjust grammatical categories without changing the core meaning or word class; examples in English include -s for plural or third-person singular (cats, runs), -es (boxes), -ed for past tense (walked), and -ing for present participles (walking). Derivational suffixes create new words or shift word class; examples include -ness (happiness from happy), -ment (development from develop), -able (readable), -tion (construction), and -ize (modernize). Productivity, frequency, and semantics vary widely; some suffixes are highly productive and polysemous, others are restricted to specific domains. Phonology also interacts with morphology, as suffixation can trigger vowel changes, consonant doubling, or allomorphy (for example, the plural -s pronounced as /s, z, ɪz/ depending on context).

Across languages, morphologysuffixes are central to morphology. In Germanic and Romance languages, suffixes mark tense, mood, case, number, or derivation. In agglutinative languages such as Turkish, Finnish, or Hungarian, long series of suffixes encode nearly all grammatical information. Suffixes can also encode evidentiality, aspect, or politeness. Overall, morphologysuffixes underpin word formation, grammatical agreement, and historical language change.