What are Affixations, Compounding Words, Phrasal Verbs and Collocations?

AFFIXATIONS

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes. Affixation is, thus, the linguistic process speakers use to form different words by adding morphemes (affixes) at the beginning (prefixation), the middle (infixation) or the end (suffixation) of words.

Positional categories of affixes

Affixes are divided into several categories, depending on their position with reference to the stem. Prefix and suffix are extremely common terms.

Categories of affixes
Affix	Example	Schema	Description
Prefix	un-do	prefix-stem	Appears at the front of a stem
Suffix/Postfix	look-ing	stem-suffix	Appears at the back of a stem
Infix	Minne⟨flippin'⟩sota	st⟨infix⟩em	Appears within a stem — common in Borneo-Philippines languages
Circumfix	a⟩scatter⟨ed	circumfix⟩stem⟨circumfix	One portion appears at the front of a stem, and the other at the rear
Interfix	speed-o-meter	stem_a-interfix-stem_b	Links two stems together in a compound
Duplifix	teeny~weeny	stem~duplifix	Incorporates a reduplicated portion of a stem (may occur in front, at the rear, or within the stem)
Transfix	Maltese: k⟨i⟩t⟨e⟩b "he wrote" (compare root ktb "write")	s⟨transfix⟩te⟨transfix⟩m	A discontinuous affix that interleaves within a discontinuous stem
Simulfix	mouse → mice		Changes a segment of a stem
Suprafix	produce (noun) produce (verb)		Changes a suprasegmental phoneme of a stem
Disfix	Alabama: tipli "break up" (compare root tipasli "break")	stm	The elision of a portion of a stem

PREFIXES

A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.

Prefix	Meaning	Examples
anti	against	anti-war, antisocial, antibiotic
auto	of or by oneself	Autograph, auto-pilot, autobigraphy
pro	In favour of	Pro-goverment, pro-revolutionary
semi	half	Semicircular, semi-final, semi-detached
under	Not enough	Underworked, underused, undercooked

SUFFIXES

In linguistics, a suffix (also sometimes called a postfix or ending) is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Particularly in the study of Semitic languages, a suffix is called an afformative, as they can alter the form of the words to which they are fixed.

Suffix	Examples
-able (adjective suffix)	Drinkable, washable, readable
-ise (makes verbs from adjectives)	Modernise, commercialise, industrialise
-ment (nouns)	Excitement, enjoyment, replacement
-ity (nouns)	Flexibility, productivity, scarcity
-ship (abstract nouns especially status)	Friendship, partnership, membership

COMPOUNDING WORDS

In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes (the other word-formation process being derivation). Compounding or Word-compounding refers to the faculty and device of language to form new words by combining or putting together old words. In other words, compound, compounding or word-compounding occurs when a person attaches two or more words together to make them one word. The meanings of the words interrelate in such a way that a new meaning comes out which is very different from the meanings of the words in isolation.

Compound words	Examples
Closed form (combined words)	Secondhand, keyboard, notebook, softball
Hyphenated form	Daughter-in-law, master-at-arms, six-pack
Open form (individual words)	Post office, real estate, middle class

PHRASAL VERBS

A phrasal verb is a combination of a verb and a preposition, a verb and an adverb, or a verb with both an adverb and a preposition, any of which are part of the syntax of the sentence, and so are a complete semantic unit. Sentences may contain direct and indirect objects in addition to the phrasal verb. Phrasal verbs are particularly frequent in the English language. A phrasal verb often has a meaning which is different from the original verb.

Phrasal verbs	Examples
do up-	Melissa did up her makeup before she went to the dance.
do (something) over-	The robbers tried to steal my money and then do me in.
do (someone) good-	I know you don't want to learn Latin, but it will do you good in the future.
do without (something)-	We didn't bring enough money to the store so we are going to have to do without the snacks.
do away with-	The school is going to do away with uniforms. Nobody likes them.

COLLOCATIONS

In corpus linguistics, collocation defines a sequence of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance. In phraseology, collocation is a sub-type of phraseme. An example of a phraseological collocation (from Michael Halliday)is the expression strong tea. While the same meaning could be conveyed by the roughly equivalent *powerful tea, this expression is considered incorrect by English speakers. Conversely, the corresponding expression for computer, powerful computers is preferred over *strong computers. Phraseological collocations should not be confused with idioms although both are similar in that there is a degree of meaning present in the collocation or idiom that is not entirely compositional. With idioms, the meaning is completely non-compositional whereas collocations are mostly compositional.

Collocations	Examples
Have	have a bath, have a drink, have a good time, have a haircut
Do	do business, do nothing, do someone a favour, do the cooking
Make	make a difference, make a mess, make a mistake, make a noise
Take	take a break, take a chance, take a look, take a rest
Break	break a habit, break a leg, break a promise, break a record